A Global Soil Dataset for Earth System Modeling (Version 2, GSDEv2)

Accurate and spatially explicit soil information is a fundamental prerequisite for Earth system modelling, land surface simulations, and global environmental assessments. Although existing global soil datasets, such as GSDEv1 (The first version of this study, DOI:10.1002/2013ms000293), HWSD 2.0 and SoilGrids 2.0, have substantially advanced large-scale soil representation, they still exhibit limitations in spatial resolution, vertical consistency, and physical realism. Here we present GSDEv2, a next-generation global soil physical and chemical property dataset developed to meet the increasing demand for high-resolution Earth system modelling. GSDEv2 provides seamless global predictions at 90 m spatial resolution for nearly 30 static soil properties, including soil organic carbon, texture fractions, bulk density, porosity, and related variables, across six standard depth intervals (0–200 cm). The dataset is built upon an unprecedented compilation of approximately 23 million soil profiles, primarily sourced from the World Soil Information Service (WoSIS) and complemented by high-quality regional and national datasets. All profiles were subjected to rigorous, pedologically informed quality control procedures to remove implausible or inconsistent observations that can bias machine-learning predictions. To better capture pedological heterogeneity, soil profiles and environmental covariates were stratified into desert, non-desert mineral, and organic soil domains. Separate Random Forest models were trained for each domain using a comprehensive set of covariates representing climate, topography, vegetation, and parent material, including AlphaEarth Foundations data. Model predictions were validated using both internal cross-validation and independent reference datasets, demonstrating clear improvements in spatial detail and physical realism compared with GSDEv1, SoilGrids 2.0, and HWSD-based products. In addition, GSDEv2 adopts a data fusion framework, allowing high-quality regional soil maps to be integrated into the global predictions while preserving global consistency. GSDEv2 represents a substantial step forward in global digital soil mapping, providing a physically consistent, high-resolution soil dataset that is better suited for hydrological, biogeochemical, and land–atmosphere modelling applications. The dataset is intended to support the GlobalSoilMap initiative and next-generation Earth system simulations.