Soil and Landscape Grid
of Australia

SLGA Cloud Optimised GeoTiff DataStore

The datasets listed here comprise the TERN Landscapes Cloud Optimised Geotiff Datastore (COGs). Navigate the links below to access the various publicly available data sets. COGs allow you to quickly and efficiently access and view large raster datasets over the web without having to download the entire data set locally. Portions of, or the entire data set, can also be downloaded as required. Examples of accessing COGS can be found BELOW.

To access the SLGA data products you need to generate an API key. See BELOW for instructions.

SLGA Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia more info Nicely formated access Raw access


The covariates used in the soil attribute surface modelling can be accessed from the links listed below. Metadata for the individual covariate rasters can be found HERE. A metadata record for the entire covariate dataset can be found at - https://doi.org/10.25919/jr32-yq58

90m Covariates 90m resolution geotiffs for use in Digital Soil Modelling more info Nicely formated access Raw access
90m PCA Covariates 90m resolution Principal Component geotiffs for use in Digital Soil Modelling more info Nicely formated access Raw access
30m Covariates 30m resolution geotiffs for use in Digital Soil Modelling more info Nicely formated access Raw access
30m PCA Covariates 30m resolution Principal Component geotiffs for use in Digital Soil Modelling more info Nicely formated access Raw access


If you are using the R programming language, you can download a package from GitHub called SLGACloud to help with accessing the COGs URLs and metadata information

Accessing Cloud Optimised GeoTIFFS

COGs are GeoTIFF files that are internally formatted to allow efficient access to the raster data across the web. This means you can quickly and efficiently access and view large raster datasets over the web without having to download the entire data set locally. Portions of, or the entire data set, can also be downloaded as required.

To access the SLGA soil attribute products hosted by TERN, users need to create an account and generate an API key to access the TERN data APIs by visiting the TERN accounts page. Once you have created your TERN account you can generate an API key here or clicking on the arrow in the top right of the accounts page. Make sure you save this key somewhere when you first create it as you can't see it again after you leave the api key create page.

Next step is to go to the top of this page to find the URL of the product you are wishing to access. For this example click on the "Nicely formated access" link in the SLGA table to go to the SLGA COGs URLs page (image below). Click on the "Copy URL" button to copy the COG URL to your computers clipboard.


COGs in QGIS

QGIS is a GIS client which is able to utilise COG raster data sources.

Before you can access the COGs in QGIS from the TERN Data Store, you have to set up an environment variable in QGIS so that it can send your TERN Data Key along with the http request when accessing hte raster data.Go to the Settings/Options menu and click on the "Systems" tab. Scroll down to the "Environment" section and add a new environment variable by clicking on the "+" button. The environment varibale name is GDAL_HTTP_HEADER_FILE and the value is the path to a file containing your TERN Data Key on your PC. You will need to restart QGIS for this change to take effect.

Once the key is set up, click on the (a) “Open Data Source Manager” button to open the data source dialog window. Then (b) select "Raster" data source in the left side menu. (c) Next select the "Protocol" option in the "Source Type" box. Paste the URL into the "URI" box and click the "Add" button and the raster will be diplayed.

The file containing the TERN Data Key must be formated like "x-api-key: YourTERNDataKey" with no quotation marks. Note the space after the semi colon

The "YourApiKey" in the above URL is the API Key you obtained from TERN as per above.



QGIS Project With All SLGA Data

You can add your own COGs to QGIS manually or you can download this QGIS project to quickly access all of the SLGA product rasters



COGs in R

The R "terra" package (the successor to the "raster" package) is able to access COGs directly. Below are some examples of using COGs in "terra". Copy the code below in to you RStudio session or download this script.