A new free web tool to help land managers monitor and improve the health of soil in common habitats in Britain is now available.
A new free web tool to help land managers monitor and improve the health of soil in common habitats in Britain is now available.
The SOil funDamentals (SOD) tool was developed using data from the UKCEH Countryside Survey, which has been exploring the changes in soils and vegetation across Great Britain since 1978. It enables landowners to benchmark the health of their soil, seeing where it sits within the bigger national picture. Unlike previous benchmarking tools for soil health, this is the first to consider the health of soils within the wider semi-natural landscape of grasslands, woodlands and wetlands, as well as agriculture, and to be built from a nationally representative sample from across Great Britain.
Healthy soils support a range of environmental and societal benefits, including food production, climate change mitigation, clean water supply and biodiversity. Yet land use change, over-exploitation, pollution and climate change all threaten the health of soils.
Read More: UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Photo Credit: onehundredseventyfive via Pixabay
