[WIP] gSSURGO Enhancements: SOC Integration, enhanced XML Parsing, and Ensemble improvements

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ section for the next release.
 - The ERA5 NC extraction function can now handle multi-site instead of one.
 - Added function for merging images from the same tiling system (MODIS, GLANCE, ICESat-2, HLS, etc.).
 - Added function for converting images towards the GDAL-supported formats (H5, NetCDF, HDF4, GeoTIFF, etc .).
+- `extract_soil_gssurgo` now supports spatial sampling using a grid of user-defined size and spacing. And supports ensemble simulation of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, using area-weighted aggregation
 - New utility script `IC_SOILGRID_Utilities.R` for processing SoilGrids data to generate soil carbon initial condition (IC) files. This includes  (#3508):
   - **`soilgrids_ic_process`**: A function to extract, process, and generate ensemble members from SoilGrids250m data.
   - **`preprocess_soilgrids_data`**: A helper function to handle missing values and ensure data integrity during preprocessing. 

CITATION.cff

@@ -120,6 +120,8 @@ authors:
     orcid: 'https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7430-7879'
   - given-names: Harunobu Ishii
     affiliation: Boston University Software & Application Innovation Lab(SAIL)
+  - given-names: Akash BV
+    affiliation: CMR Institute of Technology, Bengaluru
 
 preferred-citation:
   type: article

modules/data.land/NAMESPACE

@@ -42,6 +42,7 @@ export(match_pft)
 export(match_species_id)
 export(mpot2smoist)
 export(netcdf.writer.BADM)
+export(om2soc)
 export(parse.MatrixNames)
 export(partition_roots)
 export(plot2AGB)
@@ -53,6 +54,7 @@ export(put_veg_module)
 export(sample_ic)
 export(sclass)
 export(shp2kml)
+export(soc2ocs)
 export(soil.units)
 export(soil2netcdf)
 export(soil_params)

modules/data.land/NEWS.md

@@ -26,7 +26,8 @@
 * Included all relevant carbon pools (`ROOT_BIOMASS`, `AG_BIOMASS`, `SOIL_STOCK`, `LIT_BIOMASS`) in BADM-based IC extraction; excluded non-pool variables like `SOIL_CHEM`.
 * Added explicit support for `LIT_BIOMASS` to fully utilize **BADM** biomass capabilities.
 * Added `test-IC_BADM_Utilities.R` to validate BADM initial condition extraction and processing
-
+* `extract_soil_gssurgo` now supports spatial sampling using a grid of user-defined size and spacing. And supports ensemble simulation of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, using area-weighted aggregation
+
 ## Fixed
 
 * `gSSURGO.Query()` now always returns all the columns requested, even ones that are all NA. It also now always requires `mukeys` to be specified.