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Description
The National Soil Archive and Scottish Soils Database (Underpinning National Capacity) include georeferenced samples and data from systematic National Soil Inventory surveys (NSIS 1978-87, NSIS2 2007-9). Within the current SRP, advanced statistical and machine learning approaches are being applied to complex multivariate NSIS2 datasets of chemical, physical and biological characteristics (e.g., infrared spectra, X-ray diffraction, phospholipid profiles). This is being used to identify metrics of soil status; and improve understanding of the context-specificity of soil functions and their sensitivity to change. This understanding is critical in monitoring soil status for multiple policy and regulator priorities. Such monitoring needs to be co-developed within the context of clearly specified policy and regulator needs, which will guide selection of the best metrics and statistical design of soil data collections. The vision is to expand the use of ‘big data’ approaches, for example exploiting existing eDNA archives and utilising emergent sources, such as LiDAR.