Information Holdings
Dr Stephen Hallett
NSRI is responsible for holding a wealth of soil and soil-related information, collected both in the UK and internationally. The NSRI archives represent dedicated facilities storing a broad range of soil and soil-related artefacts. These include thousands of physical soil samples, including most notably the unique ‘National Soil Inventory’ (NSI) extending across England and Wales. Further to this are the field records, soil and agro-climatic mapping and ‘institutional memory’ of the predecessor organisations of today’s NSRI, namely the Soil Survey and Land Research Centre (SSLRC), and before it the Soil Survey of England and Wales (SSEW). All of the data currently transferred to digital media is stored in NSRI’s Land Information System (LandIS), one of the largest systems of its kind in Europe. These digital datasets are available for access via our Data Lease activities. In parallel with these facilities is the extensive material of the World Soil Survey Archive and Catalogue (WOSSAC), which today holds some 22,000 catalogued soil and land-related artefacts, from 276 territories worldwide. Full details about WOSSAC are available on the separate www.wossac.com (WOSSAC Archive website).
These data holdings enable NSRI researchers and interested parties to explore the characterisation of soils and their properties, such that their spatial and temporal variability are better understood in context and that thereby information concerning soil functions and services can be made available in easily understood and usable formats to interested stakeholders.
Soils play a major part in supporting life on earth. Soil is analogous to a thin carpet covering the land surface of the planet; most soils being less than three metres thick, miniscule compared to the thickness of the earth. Yet this thin layer plays a pivotal role in the existence of humans and all land-based life on the planet. Soil is a living entity and, unlike the rock core lying below, it contains billions of living organisms helping to form the soil and allowing it to produce our food as well as the marvellous variety of forests and flora in the different climatic areas of the world, varying from date palms in desert soils, to tropical fruits in the jungle areas, to fields of wheat in temperate regions and for supporting plants surviving in some of the coldest areas of the world. Soil serves to support a range of ecosystem services, being fundamental for nutrient, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon cycles (supporting services); the production of food and fibre (provisioning services); water cleansing (regulating services); and recreation and aesthetic impacts (cultural services).
There are several thousand different soil types world-wide. Studying soils helps us to appreciate fully the importance of soil to planet earth, particularly important given human population growth and the entailing resource pressures. Our activities and research are directed towards enabling the protection and understanding of this fragile and important natural wonder, the soil resource.
NSRI maintain a number of parallel websites outlining more about this historical legacy.
www.wossac.com describes the World Soil Survey Archive and Catalogue
www.soilsworldwide.net describes the collection of soil and landscape images and photographs collected over the decades by our surveyors
Capabilities and Facilities:
