National Soil And Terrain Maps At 50-Metre Resolution For Great Britain

National scale maps depict soil parent material properties, terrain, and soil natural capital units across Great Britain circa 2020. The dataset contains 9 raster gridded maps at 50 x 50 metre resolution, providing full coverage of England, Scotland, and Wales. It was produced by the Environmental Information Data Centre using components from the BGS's models, digital soil maps, Open Street Map, and the OS Terrain 50 digital terrain model.

Use Cases

• Train land cover classification algorithms using the 13 soil natural capital unit classes derived from parent material and terrain features.
• Model topographic wetness index and valley bottom flatness indices for hydrological and erosion risk studies.
• Assess soil health by analyzing map layers for parent material texture, drainage, depth, organic matter, and calcium carbonate content.
• Support digital soil mapping algorithms by using the 50-metre resolution raster layers of derived soil properties as training or validation data.

Strengths

• 9 raster map layers provide multiple derived environmental variables for analysis.
• 50 x 50 metre resolution offers detailed national coverage for England, Scotland, and Wales.
• Maps integrate data from authoritative sources including BGS models, OS Terrain 50, and Open Street Map.

Limitations

• Northern Ireland is excluded due to a lack of accessible third-party data for the classification framework.
• Several soil properties like texture and depth reflect long-term conditions and may not capture recent changes.
• The dataset's representativeness for 2020 is based on specific inputs like soil organic carbon and quarry locations, which may omit other dynamic factors.

Provenance

Source

Environmental Information Data Centre

Collection Method

Derived from BGS's Depth to Groundwater and Parent Material Models, digital soil organic carbon maps, peat extent maps, Open Street Map quarry/landfill data, and OS Terrain 50 DTM.

Time Range

Circa 2020

Freshness

Representative of conditions circa 2020, with several properties reflecting longer-term states.

Geography

Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales)