Dear DSSAT users, 
 
During the 1990s, a soils database was developed by the International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC) in The Netherlands for the project "World Inventory of Soil Emission Potentials" (WISE). This database includes soil profiles from all over the world and soils are classified according to FAO classification. Using this database, we converted 1125 soil profiles into a format that can be used as input data to some commonly used biophysical computer models, such as the crop simulation models within the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT; thus SOIL.SOL format). Soil data are often unavailable, particularly for many locations in the tropical and subtropical regions. If little or nothing is known about the soil profile for a particular location, one can estimate some of its parameters, based on a comparison with other soils from the same region. The WISE database is one of the most comprehensive soil databases, with samples well distributed in the World. All soil profiles have been geo-referenced, and can thus be linked to the digital version of the FAO-UNESCO soil map of the world. 
 
An article describing this work was published as: Gijsman A.J., Thornton P.K., and Hoogenboom G. 2007. Using the WISE database to parameterize soil inputs for crop simulation models. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 56: 85-100.
 
More information can be obtained from  <http://www.icasa.net/index.html> http://www.icasa.net/index.html, where it also says how to obtain the article. The soil profiles in DSSAT format can be downloaded from http://www.icasa.net/toolkit/wise_download.htm. There are two files: WI.SOL and WI_Extended.sol. The first one has profiles that are complete and can be used as input for the DSSAT model; the second one has all the profiles, the good ones (thus WI.SOL) and the bad ones (e.g. if the texture does not add up to 100, or the layer depth < 0), which cannot be used in DSSAT without modifications.
 
Arjan Gijsman
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