LandIS - Digital Soils Information from NSRI

Introduction

The National Soil Resources Institute incorporates the former Soil Survey and Land Research Centre and as a result maintains all the published and unpublished paper soil reports and maps for England and Wales and a large body of digital soil information.

The digital information comprises the following principal data sets.

Vector and gridded vector versions of the 1:250,000 scale National Soil Map (NATMAP) including the simplified Soilscapes version,

The National Soil Inventory of data on soils and topsoil chemistry,

Representative values or a range of properties and derived functional values for soil series,

Soil profile descriptions, a proportion of which have accompanying analytical data.

All these data sets are held in the LandIS relational database that is maintained by NSRI staff. More details of each are given below.

If you would like an informal quote for soils data for an area of interest, or help in choosing your datasets click here: Data Selector and Quotation

Access arrangements

Arrangements for access to soil data are governed by an agreement between NSRI and Defra acting on behalf of the Crown. Under the LandIS Agreement:

Data are only ever licensed (i.e. not sold) for use over a specified period,

Departments of the Crown and their contractors are entitled to royalty-free data for specified applications, and therefore only pay an administrative fee to cover the cost of extraction and administration,

Bona fide researchers are entitled to data on a similar basis,

NSRI is entitled to charge all other individuals and groups, including the Executive Agencies, an additional royalty fee to reflect the value of the information. Royalty fees are calculated using a set of standardised charging formulae that apply progressive discounts on base rates for larger volumes of data.

Data are normally supplied on CD in an agreed format.

The key soil data sets

1) NATMAP – the National Soil Map

More than 200 man years of fieldwork went into the creation of the National Soil Map. Redigitisation in 1999 resulted in a new vector data set with full urban soil line work and accurate registration to the OS 1:50,000 base (NATMAP vector). NATMAP vector is the flagship product of NSRI and displays the 300 mapped soil associations at a scale of 1:250,000.

From NATMAP vector, other digital products have been derived. There are 1, 2, and 5 km2 ‘gridded-vector’ reclassifications of NATMAP vector, named NATMAP 1000, 2000 and 5000. The newest product from the NATMAP range; NATMAP soilscapes, with 27 soil map units, is proving increasingly popular. The aim of this reclassification and simplification of NATMAP vector is to provide extensive, applicable and understandable soil data to the non-soil scientist.

NATMAP data can be supplied for NUTS regions, catchments or other user-specified areas.

Click here for more information on NATMAP datasets

Which data should I choose? (Information in Brief)

2) SOILSERIES and HORIZON – soil series attribute and function values

SOILSERIES data is tabular data that can be used in conjunction with any of the NATMAP products except NATMAP soilscapes. There are multiple attribute datasets, which are outlined below. Each is used in assessing or modelling the capability or vulnerability of land.

SOILSERIES info provides basic information on the soil series, including the modern definition of the soil. SOILSERIES pesticides includes information useful for pesticide control such as pesticide leaching and runoff classes. SOILSERIES hydrology provides extensive information (17 properties) on the water regime, moisture release and hydrology of each soil. SOILSERIES leacs provides information on the shrink-swell and corrosivity of the soil to Fe and Zn. HORIZONfundamentals includes very detailed descriptions of the texture and thickness of each layer, while HORIZONhydraulics provides data on the water content and many other properties pertaining to each horizon.

Click here for more information on SOILSERIES and HORIZON datasets

Which data should I choose? (Information in Brief)

3) NSI – the National Soil Inventory of soil quality monitoring data

National Soil Inventory (NSI) data is a set of point data. NSI data covers England and Wales on a 5 km grid and provides detailed information for each intersect of the grid. Collectively NSI data are statistically representative of England and Wales soils and they offer a valuable foundation for future monitoring of soil quality. The original sampling was from around 1980 and there were partial resamplings in the mid-1990s.

NSI site includes erosion, landuse and lithological information. NSI profile gives a very detailed soil description including stone abundance, root descriptions and boundary information. NSI topsoil gives detailed measurements of over 20 elements from the soils, in addition to pH. NSI textures describes the soil texture. NSI features provides depth data to various layers and includes a flood risk indicator.

Click here for more information on NSI datasets

Which data should I choose? (Information in Brief)

Other soil data sets

LandIS contains a wide range of other data and you are encouraged to make contact with our help desk for more details.

To find out more about how our data might be of use to you, please have a look through these pages. You can even obtain a price for the data you need within an area.

Alternatively, you can e-mail nsridata@cranfield.ac.uk or call the LandIS Information Services Manager on (01234) 75 29 78.