Data-driven analysis of America’s soils: fragile soil risk, organic matter depletion, infrastructure vulnerability, and regenerative land management practices.
Wind turbine foundations fail when soils heave or settle, yet most projects skip the public soil data that would predict it. SSURGO drainage class, linear extensibility, and settlement ratings can tell a developer which turbine positions need a million-dollar pile foundation and which need a standard mat, before any borings are drilled.
Read the analysis →13.3% of rated SSURGO map units carry a Fragile or higher FSI rating. This translates to 28,122 map units across the United States. The number is striking. It indicates a significant portion of the country
Read the analysis →Sentinel-1 InSAR now measures millimeter-scale subsidence across American cities, but in most documented cases the soil beneath was already rated settlement-prone in SSURGO. The satellite confirms a forecast the free soil survey delivered decades earlier.
Read the analysis →The Topographic Wetness Index, derived from a 1-meter LiDAR elevation model, predicts SSURGO drainage class with roughly 80 percent accuracy and flags probable hydric soils before any field delineation dollar is spent.
Read the analysis →109 million acres of hydric soils are mapped in the contiguous U.S. Waterlogged soil presents challenges for septic systems. This number represents areas where the soil is saturated with water. The presence of hydric soils can lead to signi
Read the analysis →A fuzzy-logic soil-suitability model run against the national soil survey finds that Data Center Alley in Loudoun County, Virginia is only 39 percent buildable, with its largest share of ground rated marginal. The dirt under hyperscale is a construction-budget line item the industry rarely names.
Read the analysis →A fuzzy-logic soil-suitability model run against the national soil survey finds that Data Center Alley in Loudoun County, Virginia is only 39 percent buildable, with its largest share of ground rated marginal. The dirt under hyperscale is a construction-budget line item the industry rarely names.
Read the analysis →A soil map the country has had for decades quietly decides where the AI build-out can actually happen. GroundScore reads it.
Read the analysis →Expansive soils cost U.S. homeowners over 15 billion dollars per year. Foundation damage is the culprit. This damage, caused by shrink-swell soils, is well understood by soil scientists. The risk is already mapped in the SSURGO dataset for
Read the analysis →109 million acres of hydric soils cover the contiguous U.S. This is a lot of land. Water tables are high in these areas, and organic matter accumulates, creating conditions that support unique ecosystems. Drained peatlands release carbon at
Read the analysis →Terrain curvature from LiDAR predicts depth to bedrock within 30 cm at 70 percent of tested Appalachian and Rocky Mountain sites, screening soil depth before a costly Phase I geotechnical study.
Read the analysis →A Phase I environmental site assessment costs thousands of dollars. Nothing, in contrast, is the cost of a SSURGO query, which runs in seconds.
Read the analysis →The contiguous U.S. has approximately 109 million acres of hydric soils. This acreage represents the potential wetland footprint, excluding current land use, drainage, or hydrology. Road salt can cause lasting damage to soil structure due t
Read the analysis →109 million acres of hydric soils are mapped in the contiguous U.S. That
Read the analysis →Nevada
Read the analysis →Multispectral drones map soil organic matter at 5-centimeter resolution for a fraction of the cost of lab sampling, but the reflectance only becomes a defensible carbon number when calibrated against KSSL chemistry and corrected for soil moisture. Here is the science of bare soil reflectance and the workflow that makes it pay.
Read the analysis →109 million acres of hydric soils are mapped in the contiguous U.S. Water tables are high. This number represents a significant portion of the country
Read the analysis →Karst geology underlies 20 percent of the United States. Every square kilometer is marked in your soil survey data. Sinkholes can appear suddenly. They swallow buildings, a major concern for infrastructure projects.
Read the analysis →The cost of obtaining a Section 404 wetland permit averages $2.2 million and takes 18 months. High cost. This number represents the cost of regulatory compliance for land development projects that impact jurisdictional wetlands. In these ca
Read the analysis →Soil is fragile. The national average Fragile Soil Index value is 0.272 on a 0-to-1 scale, indicating a level of soil fragility that can have significant consequences. This number represents a measure of how easily soil can be damaged by hu
Read the analysis →Soil organic matter predicts long-term farm productivity. It
Read the analysis →Fragile soil is a problem. The national soil survey, compiled by the National Cooperative Soil Survey, reveals a complex landscape of soil conditions across 2.3 million map units. Most road budgets fail to account for the impact of fragile soils on infrastructure
Read the analysis →Thirty-one percent of all mapped SSURGO soil components are classified as hydric. Nearly one-third of the country
Read the analysis →Deep learning now reads soil texture from smartphone photos at 78 percent accuracy, but the 60,000 laboratory-verified pedons in KSSL and free SSURGO polygons remain the ground truth that makes those predictions defensible.
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