Zoom into Soil: Soils in Scotland

Dr Allan Lilly, a Senior Soil Scientist at The James Hutton Institute, presents The Soils of Scotland: An Overview as we look ahead to the World Congress of Soil Science 2022 in Glasgow. With this in mind, Allan provides an overview of Scottish soils, their diversity and some of the factors that contribute to the diverse range of soils found within the Scottish landscape.

Ben Butler, a Digital Soil Mineralogist at the James Hutton Institute, presents The Mineralogy of Scottish Soils. The many properties and functions that soils provide for life on land are inherently linked to their mineralogy. Accurately identifying and quantifying soil mineral compositions therefore provides a wealth of information that can be used to better understand and manage soil systems amidst the great demands placed upon them. Scottish soils are particularly diverse in mineralogy due to the assortment of parent materials that feature across the nation, in combination with the variation in soil forming factors that act upon them. In his presentation, Ben introduces the minerals that can be found in Scottish soils, their approximate spatial variation, and how these minerals affect soil properties. He discusses some ways in which soil mineral data can be collected and analysed quantitatively using open-source, computational approaches.