Maps made in the past remain the backbone for present and future studies. Soil maps are resources for researchers in many fields apart from soil science; they are the source of databases, related to and dependent on soils, used to monitor land degradation and improvement, changes in land use and water resources, and to predict climatic and other environmental changes.

Less and less new, fundamental soil data are being produced these days; the older data and information are being pumped around more and more. Therefore it is vital to preserve the older data (in this case maps) as they are building blocks of most current soil information. The user of present-day, derived information should have easy access to the source material, if only to assess the reliability of the derived material.

But, in many countries, soil maps are being lost because of lack of proper attention to storage and retrieval, often compounded by a loss of institutions that have been responsible for the acquisition and maintenance of soil and land resources data. This problem is acute in developing and transitional countries where valuable data, currently only available on paper, must be digitized before they are lost forever.

In Africa, though not only in Africa, this type of information is rapidly being lost; much is already lost. The digitization of the African maps will enable the African countries to recover and re-use their soil information.

Translation of soil information from paper maps and reports into digital format is a prerequisite of the next step - the development of an information system on soil and terrain that may be drawn upon for manifold applications.