Soils provide many different ecosystem services such as carbon storage, food production, flood prevention and supply of clean water and they also host a significant proportion of our terrestrial biodiversity. Monitoring helps us understand how soils work and how changes to land management, climate and pollution may change soil properties and communities.
The Long Term Monitoring Network soil monitoring includes biological measures which characterise communities of soil organisms and how they change over time. Soil biology can provide good indicators of change as it may react quickly to reflect changes in the environment. Soil physico-chemical properties are also measured to provide an understanding of the building blocks of soil and how they interact to influence biogeochemical cycles and processes. These are presented in the context of the vegetation composition, to link above and below-ground ecosystem properties.
This dataset contains soil monitoring data from field survey and laboratory analyses of samples from 37 sites across England between 2011 and 2023. The data include baseline surveys of all 37 sites, and second survey data from 32 sites.
The full methodology, data and an information note relating to the baseline survey data can be downloaded below. The data can be downloaded either as a single workbook, or in separate workbooks for vegetation survey, physico-chemical and biological data. Locations and survey history of soil plots are also provided.
This page is part of Natural England’s Long Term Monitoring Network. To view the sites within the LTMN network please see the individual Data by sites pages.