The folks at Geocarta have pointed out that a working partnership between Oregon State University and the government of China has produced a soil and agriculture atlas. Entitled Visualizing China’s Future Agriculture: Climate, Soil and Suitability Maps for Improved Decision Making, the project was originally an internet mapping effort (still partially accessible) using Mapserver technology. “Using a model based on gridded climate and soils data, a map of species suitability is produced sing threshold values set by the user.” The threshold values could then be modified by the user and a new set of maps based on these values would be created. All GIS and raster cacluations were completed using GRASS.

What is unusual about this project is that the mapping moved from an interactive, web-based mapping system to a standard paper-based atlas. The first 13 pages of the 296 page, 11 inches x 17 inches book are available for viewing online as well as a couple of the maps.