Atlas of Soils and of Natural Environmental data, New Hebrides Archipelago
Atlas de sols et de quelques données du milieu naturel, Archipel des Nouvelles Hêbrides (Atlas of Soils and of Natural Environmental data, New Hebrides Archipelago) was published in 1981 by Paul Quantin for ORSTOM (Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique Outre-Mer).
The foreword to this publication records that the soil survey was undertaken 15 years previously and references to published reports range from 1972 to 1981 in the literature. This report includes island-by-island (or island group) maps of soils, parent rocks, landforms and vegetation along with a written report to accompany each set of maps. Maps are generally 1:100,000 scale for soils, and 1:250,000 scale for parent material and vegetation. The booklets for each island group also contain soil profile data from sample locations, but this has been summarised rather than being a complete database of soil attributes at all sites.
VANRIS
In June 1990, the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau (AIDAB) contracted the Queensland Forest Service (QFS) and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Australia (CSIRO), Division of Tropical Crops and Pastures to undertake the Vanuatu Forest Resource Survey Project. The principal aim of the project was "to contribute to the national objective of the Vanuatu Government to plan and manage the country's forest and-agricultural resources in conjunction with appropriate land use development and conservation strategies for the economic benefit of the Vanuatu people".
During the project a geographically-referenced micro-computer based planning tool called the Vanuatu Resource Information System (VANRIS) was developed. VANRIS integrates spatially referenced information for the entire country concerning the type,
distribution and current use of the natural resources with population distribution.
VANRIS (Vanuatu Resource Information System) was published in 1993 by Jennifer Bellamy of CSIRO. There is a VANRIS handbook explaining the methodology and an associated geospatial dataset (digital map). The mapping approach is to map resource mapping units (RMUs) rather than soil specifically, but soil is one of, if not the key inventory factor upon which map unit boundaries are mapped.
Note: This VANRIS dataset has been reconstituted from a single factor dataset with a full set of polygon geometry held by Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) in Vanuatu, and from a full set of attribute soil attribute tables held by CSIRO in Canberra with no geometry data. Checks suggest the relational join on RMU-ID (present in both partial datasets) is good, but it is important to recognise that there was no intact authoritative archival version of VANRIS held at any location.
