Soil Health/Soil Quality

Healthy soil is the basis for productive crops and scenic forestlands. It leads to productive grazing lands and diverse wildlife habitats.

Soil performs five essential functions: 1) regulating water, 2) sustaining plant and animal life, 3) filtering and buffering potential pollutants, 4) cycling nutrients, and 5) physical stability and support. The NRCS provides a comprehensive site detailing the importance of soil health.

Local Soil Surveys

Soil surveys provide the public with comprehensive information about soils across the U.S. Developed specifically for each county in the nation, the soil survey is produced by the National Cooperative Soil Survey, which is operated by the USDA NRCS. Originally produced as paper-based soil survey books, the soil survey is now provided via the Web Soil Survey (WSS). The WSS, maintained as the single authoritative source of soil survey information, allows one to create custom reports by selecting their specific area of interest. The archived soil survey books are still available for review as PDFs, however the WSS is the official, current soil information repository.

Soil surveys are for general land use. Soil quality assessments and certain conservation and engineering applications may require onsite investigation and testing.

Consult the soil survey resources below to learn more about soil in your location.

SoilWeb Mobile App

According to the NRCS, "The SoilWeb app provides GPS based, real-time access to USDA-NRCS soil survey data, formatted for mobile devices. This application retrieves graphical summaries of soil types associated with the user's current geographic location. Images are linked to detailed information on the named soils. It is available for iPhone and Android users, and Google Maps and Google Earth also interface with this application. This application was developed in a partnership between UC Davis California and NRCS. "

The SoilWeb App is available in the app store for both iPhone and Android users.

Other Texas Counties Soil Surveys

Consult the NRCS Published Soil Surveys for Texas to view data and maps for counties beyond Caldwell and Travis.