Soil Properties Across Five Grassland-to-Woodland Contrasts in England, 2018-2019

Five long-term land use contrasts across England provide soil chemical, physical, and biological properties measured in up to six layers down to 100 cm depth. Data includes common metrics like bulk density and pH, less common ones like extracellular enzyme activities, and is co-located with ANPP estimates and earthworm counts. The dataset was collected by the Environmental Information Data Centre between November 2018 and March 2019 but has been withdrawn.

Use Cases

• Modeling soil carbon sequestration based on total soil carbon and nitrogen measurements across land use types.
• Analyzing the impact of land use change on soil health using co-located physical, chemical, and biological properties.
• Studying spatial variability in soil properties within and between grassland and woodland grids at defined plot boundaries.
• Correlating soil microbial activity (via extracellular enzyme data) with soil texture and aggregate size measurements.

Strengths

• Includes both common and less common soil properties, such as extracellular enzyme activities and cation exchange capacity.
• Measurements are co-located with ancillary data like above-ground net primary production (ANPP) and earthworm counts.
• Samples were taken from up to six soil layers (0-100 cm) at nine random locations within each of five geographically distinct sites.

Limitations

• The dataset has been withdrawn, which may affect data accessibility or completeness.
• Row count and specific file formats are unknown, limiting suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Environmental Information Data Centre

Collection Method

Field sampling at nine random locations within three grids per land use type at five sites.

Time Range

November 2018 to March 2019

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-19 07:34:24.372228; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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