Soil Properties Across Grassland-Woodland Contrasts in England

Five long-term grassland-to-woodland land use contrasts across England were sampled between November 2018 and March 2019. The dataset contains soil chemical, physical, and biological properties measured for up to six layers between 0 and 100 cm depth, co-located with estimates of above-ground net primary productivity and earthworm counts. Derived metrics from bioinformatic processing of raw sequence files are also included.

Use Cases

• Analyzing soil carbon and nitrogen stocks based on total soil carbon and nitrogen measurements across land-use types.
• Modeling soil water dynamics using field water content, soil water release curves, and hydraulic conductivity data.
• Studying microbial community function via extracellular enzyme activities and derived bioinformatic metrics.
• Assessing soil fertility and nutrient availability using cation exchange capacity and extractable nitrogen data.
• Investigating soil structure and physical quality through bulk density, soil aggregate size, and texture measurements.

Strengths

• Provides co-located measurements for soil properties, ANPP, and earthworm counts, enabling integrated ecosystem analysis.
• Includes both common (e.g., pH, bulk density) and less common (e.g., extracellular enzyme activities, soil density fractions) soil property measurements.
• Samples were taken from a structured design across five distinct geographic locations in England.

Limitations

• The dataset is listed as withdrawn on the eu_open_data platform, limiting its current availability.
• Key metadata such as row count, specific column names, and license information are missing from all sources.
• Data collection was a one-time snapshot between 2018 and 2019, providing no temporal trend analysis.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service (as per eu_open_data)

Collection Method

Field sampling at nine random locations per plot across five grassland-to-woodland contrasts.

Time Range

November 2018 to March 2019

Freshness

Last updated date noted as 2026-04-02, but the dataset is marked as withdrawn.

Geography

Five sites across England: Gisburn (two plots), Alice Holt, Wytham Woods, and Kielder Forest.