NFI+ Soil Condition & Health: Forest Soil Indicators Across Great Britain

Soil chemical, physical, and biological indicators collected from forest sites across Great Britain as part of the NFI+ and BioSoil monitoring networks. Samples were collected at multiple depth intervals using standardised protocols aligned with ICP Forests and BioSoil methodologies. The Forestry Commission published this data, last updated in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Model soil carbon sequestration potential based on organic carbon content and soil texture data.
• Assess forest soil contamination risks based on heavy metal concentration measurements.
• Analyze relationships between forest type, soil biology, and soil health based on metabarcoding data for bacterial and fungal communities.
• Monitor changes in soil physical properties like bulk density and porosity over time.

Strengths

• Includes a wide range of measured indicators: chemical (pH, organic carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, cations), physical (texture, bulk density), and biological (metabarcoding data for microbes, taxonomic data for mesofauna and earthworms).
• Quality assurance procedures included duplicate sampling, laboratory reference standards, and inter-laboratory comparisons.
• Samples were collected at standardized depth intervals (0-10cm, 10-20cm, 20-40cm) using protocols aligned with international monitoring networks.

Limitations

• Data coverage is limited to forest soils only, excluding other land types.
• Some historical samples may have incomplete heavy metal analysis.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Forestry Commission, includes data from Ordnance Survey, British Geological Survey, and the Met Office.

Collection Method

Field sampling as part of the NFI+ programme and BioSoil network, using standardized protocols.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-12 14:15:04.679913

Geography

Forest soil sampling sites across Great Britain.