**4. Value-adding to soil survey by employing ecological site descriptions**

The intent of soil survey was to map soils based on observable diagnostic soil horizons and to provide soil interpretations. The linkage of soil spatial distributions with the spatial distribution of ecological sites as a digital product provides opportunities to (i) assist land owner decision making to improve ecosystem services and protect soil as a natural resource, (ii) empower land custodians to understand the ecosystem response and vegetational outcomes from land management applications, and (iii) understand behavior and changes to the soil resource because of land management applications. Each outcome of the soil survey linkage with ecological site descriptions is critical and each has a unique benefit to society.

The ability to assist land owner decision making to improve ecosystem services and protect soil as a natural resource has always been the central theme of the United States Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources and Conservation Service and the Missouri Department of Conservation. With the advent of online digital technologies, the likelihood that land custodians will seek these resources to guide land management is substantial, provided these digital online resources are comparative easy to navigate and conceptualize. The role of the soil scientist to understand behavior and changes to the soil resource because of land management applications was founded in the infancy of soil science when soil genesis was postulated to result from the five soil forming factors: (i) parent material, (ii) climate, (iii) organisms, (iv) topography (relief), and (v) time.

Essentially all five of the soil forming factors are evident and treated in the ecological site description. What is also intriguing are some of the potential benefits that may be realized in the near-term: (i) manage forests to sequester carbon, (ii) support selected sites for maintaining soil and vegetation to assist the recovery of endangered species, (iii) supporting land management application to protect highly erodible soils, and (iv) reducing fire threats to small rural communities.

*Environmental Management - Pollution, Habitat, Ecology, and Sustainability*
