Digital soil map of arable land in Sweden

The Digital Soil Map of arable land in Sweden (DSMS) is a publicly available (CC-BY license) digital map product that provides information about various soil properties in the topsoil (the upper 20 cm) of arable land. The product consists of several map layers. It includes calculated percentages of clay, sand, and silt content in the soil, as well as the USDA/FAO soil texture class (see SoilTextureTriangle on Wikipedia). The predicted organic matter content is also available as a map layer.

The map has a spatial resolution of 20 m × 20 m and covers virtually all arable land in southern Sweden, up to and including most of Gävleborg County (according to the Swedish Board of Agriculture’s (Jordbruksverket) 2022 field block map). Texture predictions are not done in areas classified as organic soils in the Geological Survey of Sweden’s (SGU) Quaternary Geological Map, and where the estimated organic matter content is 20% or higher.

The DSMS was developed by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in collaboration with SGU. The original development work was funded by SGU and the Swedish National Space Board (Rymdstyrelsen), while the Swedish Board of Agriculture and Lantmäteriet provided data. The The Rural Economy and Agricultural Societies (Hushållningssällskapet) also participated in the project. The most recent update was completed in 2025 with support from SLU and the Västra Götaland Region.