Soils of Ireland
Agricultural activities have long been recognised as being a shaper of the rural landscape and environment which exist in Ireland today. Historically, farmers have engaged in protection of the land out of necessity to maintain their production capacity through generations. Our knowledge and appreciation of soils is continually growing however. The role of soils and the key functions they provide is increasingly being recognised and there is a new impetus from all soil users for enchanced protection of a key natural resource.
Critical to the successful management of our soil resource is knowledge on the location of our soils, and their associated properties. The Irish Soil Information System project has gathered together existing information and data from previous soil survey work in Ireland and augmented it with a new field campaign, leading to the production of a new national soil map at a scale of 1:250,000, as well as a collection of tools to access and interact with the data.
An extensive range of soil types (or series) have been identified in Ireland, each of them different in properties, with different environmental and agronomic responses. For each, the properties have been recorded in a database that can now be used to satisfy the information required both for soils management and effective policy implementation. Importantly the database can also be used to provide the public with the means to enquire and learn about the precious soil resources of Ireland. The following website provides a series of tools and descriptive information seeking to help all users engage with the soils information resource now available to us. (Provided by the Irish Soil Information System.)
For more information about the Soils of Ireland, visit;
gis.teagasc.ie/soils/index.php
and the sponsors...
Soils of Ireland
Agricultural activities have long been recognised as being a shaper of the rural landscape and environment which exist in Ireland today. Historically, farmers have engaged in protection of the land out of necessity to maintain their production capacity through generations. Our knowledge and appreciation of soils is continually growing however. The role of soils and the key functions they provide is increasingly being recognised and there is a new impetus from all soil users for enchanced protection of a key natural resource.
Critical to the successful management of our soil resource is knowledge on the location of our soils, and their associated properties. The Irish Soil Information System project has gathered together existing information and data from previous soil survey work in Ireland and augmented it with a new field campaign, leading to the production of a new national soil map at a scale of 1:250,000, as well as a collection of tools to access and interact with the data.
An extensive range of soil types (or series) have been identified in Ireland, each of them different in properties, with different environmental and agronomic responses. For each, the properties have been recorded in a database that can now be used to satisfy the information required both for soils management and effective policy implementation. Importantly the database can also be used to provide the public with the means to enquire and learn about the precious soil resources of Ireland. The following website provides a series of tools and descriptive information seeking to help all users engage with the soils information resource now available to us. (Provided by the Irish Soil Information System.)
For more information about the Soils of Ireland, visit;
gis.teagasc.ie/soils/index.php
and the sponsors...