soil informatics at bgs - nottingham.ac.uk · •bgs is a component body of nerc •advise uk...

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Soil Informatics at BGS

Russell Lawley


• BGS is a component body of NERC

• Advise UK government on all aspects

of geoscience

• Public funded (c.50%)

• HQ in Nottingham

• 650 staff across UK

• We operate globally, generally in a

capacity-building role

• Geologically surveying UK since 1835

• We create and provide an extensive

range of geoscience information for

public good, research and commerce

www.bgs.ac.uk

BGS


Soils at BGS

• G-Base

• Airborne geophysics

• Soil-Parent models

• Process modelling

• Environmental statistics

• National Baseline Concentrations

• Soil & human health

• Soil & animal health

• mySOIL

• UK Soil Observatory


Soil informatics


Soil informatics - mySoil

• Soil-related data on a mobile platform

with a crowdsourcing option

• V1 April 2012 (UK data) iOS

• V2 June 2013 (EU data) iOS, Android

• integrated with UKSO April 2014

• Takes data feeds from BGS, CEH, Met

Office, JRC and Open Street Mapping

www.bgs.ac.uk/mysoil


• One of our more popular crowdsourcing

mechanisms

• App has a broad spectrum of appeal

• Simple interface

• Habitat

• Soil depth

• Organic matter

• pH

• Texture

• Soil temperature

• Crowd sources pictures, description, texture

pH

Soil informatics - mySoil


Soil informatics – UK Soil Observatory

www.ukso.org



www.ukso.org

• UK soils data through a web

mapping portal

• Started as NERC soil portal 2010

• Launched as UKSO 2014

• Mobile-enabled 2015

• Takes data feeds from BGS,

Cranfield, CEH, JHI, AFBINI,

Forestry Commission, Forestry

Research and Rothamsted



• Build upon data availability and

interoperability to improve the clarity and

ease-of-use of national and regional soil

data resources

• Provide data for free where possible or

free-to-view as a minimum

• Provide signposts to sources of soil

research and soil-related data for others

to use and develop

Airborne radiometrics



135 data layers in viewer

• Soil type

• Soil function & parameters

• Soil chemistry

• Soil geophysics

• Habitat

• Soil biota

• mySoil content

• Web Map Services

• 1:10k, 1:50k & 1:250k expert maps,

• Point data,

• Interpolated data (50m – 1km)

• Static images


UKSO changes since 2014

• Considerable back office re-

write

• c.35 additional layers

• Crowd source interface

• Crowd source thematics

• Improved search options

• Responsive sizing/format

(App & web in one)


UKSO & mySOIL activities 2016/7

UKSO

• Landcover crowdsourcing

(CEH)

• Partnership with ISRIC

• Harmonised Gbase soil models

• Crowdsource download

• PMM v8

• Harmonised BGS ‘peat’ layer

• Improved terrain models

• User-wms add-in tools

• Map sharing

mySOIL

• Welsh Language

version

• Localisation

(multilingual)

• Map caching

• World-soil data (ISRIC-

JRC)


UKSO/ mySoil possibilities

• A dedicated ‘research’ /discussion area

• A dedicated ‘agronomy’ area

o Agritech data/sample platform (WMS/WFS for 3rd parties)

o Pro-user Soil mapping/observation capture system

• A dedicated ‘contaminated’ soils area

• A dedicated sensor networks area

• Others

oWFS for the OGL datasets

o Soil Moisture models

o Other legacy data


Thank you

www.ukso.org

www.bgs.ac.uk/mysoil

[email protected]

http://www.ukso.org/

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/mysoil

mailto:[email protected]

soil informatics at bgs - nottingham.ac.uk · •bgs is a component body of nerc •advise uk...

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