Agricultural Land Classification Survey for Farnham, 1989-1999

Farnham, England survey data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's detailed post-1988 Agricultural Land Classification (ALC) program. It includes scanned original paper maps and reports for sites surveyed between 1989 and 1999, using the grading methodology from 'Agricultural Land Classification of England and Wales'. For some surveys, unedited sample point soils data and soil pit descriptions are also available.

Use Cases

• Classify agricultural land capability based on the detailed ALC grading methodology described in the survey reports.
• Analyze historical soil quality and land use potential for a specific region based on the mapped land grades and subgrades.
• Integrate scanned historical survey maps with modern GIS data for longitudinal land use studies.
• Validate or train land classification models using the unedited sample point soils data mentioned for some surveys.

Strengths

• Original survey maps and reports from a government ministry provide authoritative source material.
• Land grading follows a defined national methodology, 'Agricultural Land Classification of England and Wales'.
• Includes subdivision of Grade 3 into subgrades 3a and 3b for finer granularity.
• Some surveys include supplementary unedited sample point soils data and soil pit descriptions.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), provided by Natural England.

Collection Method

Detailed site surveys with original paper maps and reports, later scanned.

Time Range

1989 to 1999

Freshness

Survey data is from 1989-1999; last update date for the dataset is unknown.

Geography

Farnham, Land West of Princess Royal Sandpit, Runfold, England