National Soil Resources Institute
The National Soil Resources Institute is a well established centre within the Natural Resources Department. It leads Cranfield's research on soil and soil science, specifically by:
- Understanding the physical, chemical and biological processes that make up soil systems and that provide capacity for soil-based ecosystem services
- Creating, maintaining and exploiting inventories and monitoring systems for soil resources
- Developing digital soil mapping and pedometric methods to represent thematic soil characteristics
- Describing processes that expose or protect soils from threats (e.g. organic matter loss, erosion, contamination, compaction, loss of biodiversity and sealing), and developing policy and better technology for soil management and conservation in both rural and urban areas, including for sports surfaces
- Applying engineering design and evaluation methods to improve the performance of off-road vehicles, construction equipment and agricultural machines.
The National Soil Resources Institute contributes strongly to research which is led by other centres in the Natural Resources Department, particularly:
- Soil management as a part of integrated land and water management
- Spatial description of ecosystem functions and natural capital as inputs to spatial planning in rural and urban landscapes
- Land resources monitoring
Following Dick Thompson’s recent retirement, the National Soil Resources Institute is led by Acting Director Professor Guy Kirk, and holds and manages national soil resource inventories for England and Wales and is the UK National Reference Centre for soil.
> For details of soil maps and reports, Soil Site Reports and digital soil data and for access to our interactive Soilscapes map please refer to LandIS, the 'Land Information System'.
