Underneath the maps. Soil mapping and its "digital revolution"

While soils progressively become the target of environmental policies, soil sciences undergo renewal. Soil mapping is currently transforming with the rise of digital mapping, linked to the blossoming of information systems, modeling and remote sensing. The present contribution retraces the history of the French national institution in charge of soil mapping since the 60s. The article analyses the professional and epistemic transformations associated to this evolution. It accounts for the emergence of pedology in line with soil mapping. It then shows how the introduction of information technologies affects the field and sparks tensions between "conventional" mappers with a pedology background and "digital" mappers favoring modeling techniques. The transformation of soil maps enables a diversification of the communities engaged in their production and use but also paradoxically participates in homogenizing the ways of knowing and relating to soils.