This chapter explains the concepts and principles used in the interpretation of data to evaluate or predict suitabilities, limitations, or potentials of soils for a variety of uses.
Interpretation is a process that continues as long as a soil survey is in use.
Soil survey information answers a wide range of soil-related questions. There is also a great range in complexity as the soils information is sometimes used alone and sometimes as one layer of information in integrated systems that also consider other natural resources, demographics, climate, and ecological, and environmental factors in decisionmaking. Soil survey data is a component in a growing number of geographic information systems and models that deal with regional planning, erosion prediction, crop yields, and even modeling of global change. Historically, soil survey interpretations have been concerned primarily with soil interpretive predictions for the public that is specific to a land use. This contrasts with genetic or taxonomic evaluation of soils by scientists.