Soil physical properties of Austrian soils: Overview based on a comprehensive agricultural soil database

Knowledge of soil physical characteristics is key for describing hydrological behavior of landscapes. Over the last few decades, several major data collections (e.g. UNSODA, HYPRES, EU-HYDI) have provided significant contributions to the field of hydrological modeling. However, these databases may exhibit limitations, when more detailed soil information is needed for particular regional applications. Our work presents a regionally focused, quality-controlled dataset on Austrian soils. It provides soil data from studies on various land use types and soil management systems, obtained during long-term monitoring and short-term project work. The dataset contains detailed information collected over the last 30 years on 2203 soil profiles in total, representing a variety of landscapes and soil types from Austria's small-structured and diverse geography. Both disturbed and undisturbed samples are included, to obtain a wide spectrum of basic and hydraulic soil properties. The disturbed samples include measurements of soil texture (n = 6406), determined by sieving and sedimentation analysis, as well as organic carbon content using two different methods (n = 3671 and n = 2862). The undisturbed samples were used to determine bulk density (n = 5768) and to analyze soil hydraulic properties (SHPs). SHPs were determined with different methods, depending on the period of sampling. Older samples were analyzed using the pressure plate apparatus (n = 2403), while more recent samples were analyzed using the HYPROP device that applies the evaporation method in combination with the dewpoint method. A unique profile ID is assigned to each soil profile, enabling links between the different subsets. The metadata includes the coordinates of the sampling locations, the sampling data and the number of sampled depths per profile. Reclassified land use information is available for all profiles, based on CORINE 2018 land cover. The dataset provides detailed, long-term soil information from projects across Austria over a period of more than 30 years. It may be used for descriptive statistics, as well as for identification of soil hydrological parameters on a regional or national scale.