Error writing .sol files and potential problem with SWAT SSURGO database

[Kelly S]

This error has been holding me up for months. The actual error I receive when trying to write my .sol files is

Soil Tables: error – Index was outside the bounds of the array.:IN,mWriteInputFiles.sol

I am using ArcMap 10.2.2 and SWAT 2012.10.18. I downloaded the SWAT US SSURGO soil database from the SWAT website and installed in my C:\SWAT\ArcSWAT\Databases folder.

I have isolated the problem to be 101 records in my soil data with no corresponding MUID in the SSURGO_Soils table found in the SWAT US SSURGO soil database (SWAT_US_SSURGO_Soils.mdb). When I removed these records I was able to write the .sol tables. My soil data was downloaded from the USDA-NRCS Web Soil Survey website: Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO) and shapefiles for the following NC counties: Alexander, Alleghany, Anson, Cabarrus, Caldwell, Catawba, Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Guilford, Iredell, Mecklenburg, Montgomery, Randolph, Richmond, Rowan, Stanly, Stokes, Surry, Union, Watauga, Wilkes, and Yadkin;  and for the following: Lancaster, SC; Carroll and Patrick Counties, Virginia.  The coordinate system is GCS WGS 1984 and I re-projected all the data to NC State Plane: NAD 83, State Plane, NC FIPS 3200, meters.

To determine the missing soil records I used ArcMap to view and join the SSURGO database tables with my soil data. The table I joined to my soil data was the SSURGO_Soils table found in SWAT_US_SSURGO_Soils.mdb using MUID values and MUKEY values in my soil data. 

I then created a soil file of all the records that do not have matches in the SSURGO_Soils table and it appears that Caldwell county (in NC) has no records included in the SSURGO database.  There are a few additional ones mainly in Stokes, but also Davie, Stanly, Montgomery and others.  The SSURGO database was last updated October 2012. The county data was last updated September 2014 for tabular and December 2013 for spatial (these dates come from the WSS website; I actually downloaded the data in May 2014 and do not know the tabular date).  I do not believe that the soils in Caldwell County are completely different from that of the neighboring counties.  It appears to me that the 101 soil records are missing from the SWAT_US_SSURGO_Soils.mdb or that the MUIDs were misidentified by the NRCS.

Has anyone else had an issue like this? How were you able to solve it? If there is a way to re-assign these soils to another similar soil, how do I go about doing that?  Is there some type of table to use with soil characteristics?  I’m not a soil scientist, so I admit this is probably beyond my knowledge.

Thanks for your help. I'm trying to use SWAT to model the Yadkin Pee Dee watershed to determine the impacts of land use and climate change on the Uwharrie National Forest for my Master's Thesis. 

[Jim Almendinger]

Kelly --

It may be that the NRCS has not yet mapped every county in your state, or if so, has not yet digitized every county soil survey into the SSURGO data base.  This was the case for my study area in Minnesota -- I had a county missing from the SSURGO data set, and so I filled in for that county using STATSGO data.  I forget the details of how I did this exactly, but I'm pretty sure I just chose the most prevalent soil type for each STATSGO polygon and used the data for that soil type over the entire polygon.  I must have merged all the county soils maps into one large watershed-wide map, and the trick would've been to assign an appropriate soil ID to the STATSGO polygons in my rogue county.  In the end I had a complete soils map for my watershed, in a format consistent with the SSURGO dataset, but with one county that had just a few big polygons and just a few soil types. 

-- Jim

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From: "Kelly S" <kmsu...@gmail.com>
To: "ArcSWAT" <arc...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2015 1:07:19 PM
Subject: [ArcSWAT:7717] Error writing .sol files and potential problem with SWAT SSURGO database

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Dr. James E. Almendinger
St. Croix Watershed Research Station
Science Museum of Minnesota
16910 152nd St N
Marine on St. Croix, MN  55047
tel: 651-433-5953 ext 19

[Kelly S]

As far as I can tell this was the problem. Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you!!!  Happy Thanksgiving!

I had no idea you could combine STATSGO and SSURGO data. It turned out to be pretty easy.  They both use the MUKEY (=MUID in SWAT SSURGO database), so I did not have to tinker with anything. I simply merged the STATSGO data for the rogue county with all my other SSURGO counties.  Then I removed the other rogue areas that didn't match the SWAT database and swapped in the STATSGO data.  It worked beautifully!!  Happy to share detailed step by step for anyone facing this problem.

Kelly

Natural Resources Masters Student

North Carolina State University

[Adam Backsmeier]

Kelly,

I would love to know how you resolved this issue in more detail.  Thank you.

-Adam

[Tosin James]

Hi Kelly,

Am presently facing the same challenge. Do you mind sharing step by step details, on how you resolved this 

Thanks

Tosin