Today is World Soil Day. So it seems fitting that we bring you a blog all about the Scotland's soils website, which is one of the websites that forms the 'part of Scotland's environment' network. To tell us more about the website, we asked Karen Dobbie, Principal Soil Scientist at SEPA and part of the team responsible for the Scotland’s soils website. This is what she had to say.
"We want Scotland's soils website to be the place for you to go for the information and data you need about soil - whatever your reason.
And this was very much in our mind when we launched the new Scotland's soils website earlier this year. We put our users at the centre of the new website, focusing on providing information in a form that helps them make decisions in their day-to-day work. We want to make sure that the information we provide is useful and that the website is accessible and easy to use. Throughout the development of the new website we asked users for feedback and then made improvements based on those comments.
The website lets you look at a range of soil maps, land capability maps and soil thematic maps, and gives links to where you can freely download much of the data associated with them. There are also sections on the website for specific user groups that provide links to other useful sources of data and information. And you'll find background information on the soils found in Scotland, what they do, why they are important, the threats they face and what is being done to protect them.
Being 'part of Scotland's environment' also means that users can trust the data and information they find on the Scotland's soils website, knowing that it has come from authoritative sources of specialised environmental data. The website was developed in partnership with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), James Hutton Institute (JHI), NatureScot, Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) and the Scottish Government.
If you have any comments on the website or if there are areas you think we could develop or improve further, please contact us. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Your feedback will help inform the ongoing work we do to update the website and develop new tools, ensuring that the Scotland's soils website becomes your first port of call when you're looking for any soil related data and information.
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