The most recent methodological developments in soil survey and land evaluation, that can be taken as reference in the viticultural field, go over usage of the GIS and database. These informatic tools, which begin to be widely utilised, consent to realise evaluations at different geographic scale and with different data quality and quantity in entrance.
Realising a territorial study with zoning purposes however, it is always necessary to respect the coherence between aims of work, scale of considered processes, intensity of survey and evaluation model utilised. Thus, the less detailed the scale of investigation, the lower the degree of purity and confidence of geographical information, and the more generic the evaluations.
On the other hand, the way of dealing with the typological information should be different. If the soil survey model individualises soil typologies corresponding to soil series, il is possible to find the soil characters that can be functional for viticultural and oenological results, and the geographic levels at which they can be pointed out.
ln the present work, an example is brought of the possible treatment of information at different geographic generalisation levels, utilising data of some chemical analysis and a soil survey realised in Trentino (northern Italy).
Author: EDOARDO A.C. COSTANTINI
lstituto Sperimentale per lo Studio e la Difesa del Suolo
Piazza M. D’Azeglio 30, 50121 Firenze, ltalia
Email: ecostantini@dada.it
Keywords: soil survey, data interpretation, viticultural zoning, Trentino, Italy