Abstract
One of the largest challenges with soil information around the world is how to harmonize archived
soil data from different sources and how to make it accessible to soil scientist. In Ecuador, there have been
two major projects that have provided soil information, but the methodology of these projects, although comparable, did not coincide, especially with respect to how information was reported. Here, we present a new soil
database for Ecuador, comprising 13 542 soil profiles with 51 713 measured soil horizons, including 92 different edaphic variables. The original data were in a non-editable format (i.e., PDF), which made it difficult to
access and process the information. Our study provides an integrated framework that combines multiple analytic tools for automatically converting legacy soil information from an analog format into usable digital soil
mapping inputs across Ecuador. This framework allowed us to incorporate quantitative information on a broad
set of soil properties and retrieve qualitative information on soil morphological properties collected in the profile description phase, which is rarely included in soil databases. We present a new harmonized national soil
database using a specific methodology to preserve relevant information. The national representativeness of soil
information has been enhanced compared with other international databases, and this new database contributes
to filling the gaps in publicly available soil information across the country. The database is freely available at
https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/1560e803953c839e7aedef78ff7d3f6c (Armas et al., 2022)
