Mid-Infrared Soil Spectra from Great Britain 2007 Countryside Survey

2007 data contains mid-infrared spectra for 427 archived soil samples from arable and grassland habitats across Great Britain. The dataset provides diffuse reflectance spectra recorded as absorbance values for the wavenumber range 4000-400 cm-1. Samples were collected by the Countryside Survey monitoring programme to study soil quality indicators across agricultural land management gradients.

Use Cases

• Analyze absorbance values across the 4000-400 cm-1 wavenumber range to predict soil organic matter content.
• Cluster 427 soil spectra to identify distinct chemical signatures for arable versus grassland habitats.
• Model the relationship between spectral features and soil quality indicators across the agricultural management gradient.
• Use the archived soil sample spectra to train a calibration model for rapid, non-destructive soil property estimation.

Strengths

• Contains 427 soil samples providing a substantial spectral library.
• Samples cover two major habitat types (arable and grassland) across Great Britain.
• Spectral data captured across a defined wavenumber range (4000-400 cm-1).

Limitations

• Sample size of 427 may be limited for training complex deep learning models on spectral data.
• Data is from a single year (2007), limiting analysis of temporal trends or changes.
• Lack of accompanying tabular data (e.g., soil pH, nutrient levels) may restrict supervised learning applications.

Provenance

Source

Environmental Information Data Centre

Collection Method

Mid-infrared spectroscopy on finely ground subsamples of archived soil samples.

Time Range

2007

Freshness

null

Geography

Great Britain