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Conventional soil mapping is limited in its capabilities in that it presents a summary of the soil surveyor's conceptual view of soil variation. As such, the method conveys little regarding what is known about the variation of individual soil properties, or the quantitative nature of their variation. We developed a new method for soil mapping, based on the concepts employed in the PROSPECTOR mineral exploration system, which builds on existing soil surveyor knowledge to construct quantitative statements about individual soil properties via the development of a network of rules. These rules operate within a system of Bayesian inference to assign the varying probability of occurrence of a soil property of interest within an area, given evidence that relates to it in a known way. Permissible evidence includes the range of attributes normally used by a soil surveyor, such as landform, vegetation, land use, or parent material …