From your first SELECT to production-grade soil carbon calculations — a complete guide to SSURGO and the Soil Data Access REST API. Live examples run against real data.
Three SQL tracks, two API tracks, one live query sandbox — everything built around real SSURGO data.
SELECT, FROM, WHERE, ORDER BY — all against real SSURGO data. No SQL experience required. Five lessons, each with a live example.
5 lessons →JOINs, GROUP BY, CTEs, CASE WHEN — and your first real calculation: Available Water Storage from horizon data.
5 lessons →Soil organic carbon formula, NCCPI productivity index, fragility interpretations, temp tables, and spatial AOI queries.
5 lessons →Call SDA with requests, parse JSON into DataFrames, batch large queries, and build full analysis pipelines.
Query SDA from the browser, render live tables, connect soil data to interactive MapLibre GL maps, and ship reusable modules.
5 lessons →The full SSURGO join chain, table reference, live column lookup, and common query mistakes — your permanent reference.
Reference →Every SSURGO query follows this four-table spine. Learn it once, use it in every query you write.
SELECT · FROM · WHERE · ORDER BY · dominant component. Get data out of SSURGO in 30 minutes.
JOINs · GROUP BY · CTEs · CASE WHEN · Available Water Storage calculation.
Soil organic carbon formula · NCCPI · interpretations · temp tables · spatial AOI queries.
requests · pandas DataFrames · batched queries · soilDB-style wrappers · matplotlib charts.
fetch() · live HTML tables · MapLibre GL integration · reusable SDA client module.
A separate maintained repository with 254 production SQL scripts, interactive maps, and data journalism — all built on SSURGO. Links below are live and maintained independently.