Soil near-surface properties, vegetation observations, land use and land management information for 1800 locations across the Thames catchment, UK, 2018-2021

This dataset contains information about soil near-surface physical and hydrological properties, vegetation observations and land use & management information across the Thames catchment (UK). It was collected during the ‘Landwise’ project’s ‘Broad-scale field survey’ which sampled 1836 location points across a total of 164 fields/land parcels. The aim of the survey was to quantify the impact of innovative land use and management on soil properties, with implications for natural flood management. The surveyed fields were selected to represent four broad land use and management classes (arable with and without grass in rotation, permanent grassland and broadleaf woodland) and five generalised soil/geology classes. Approximately eight fields were sampled for each of the twenty combinations of land use and soil/geology class. The sampled fields cover a range of traditional and innovative agricultural practices. Within each field/parcel, representative sampling locations were selected to cover the anticipated range of soil variability, including typical infield, untrafficked margins and trafficked headlands/tramlines etc. Sampling was undertaken once during the period 2018-2021. Samples were measured and analysed using a range of field and laboratory techniques (see Data Lineage).