Moving the National Soil Database for England and Wales (LandIS) towards INSPIRE Compliance

Abstract

Established and developed over the last 30 years, the Land Information System (LandIS) holds significant national soil-environmental datasets collected primarily by the Soil Survey of England and Wales between 1939 and 1987, and latterly by the National Soil Resources Institute (NSRI) at Cranfield University. LandIS data are in widespread use through systems of architecture designed to facilitate access across a range of contemporary applications including: environmental impact assessment; land suitability and evaluation; natural resource inventory; area-based risk and geo-hazard assessments; and characterisation of ecosystem goods and services. For users of LandIS information working on these themes, access to the data is made available through readily-accessible web-based services and applications, dataset provision and fully-functional bespoke applications. The INSPIRE Directive sets out to address the availability, quality, organisation, accessibility, interoperability and sharing of spatial information across a large number of policy and information themes, for all levels of public authority within the Community through the adoption of common standards. Annex III of INSPIRE refers directly to the theme of soil, typified by the information resources held in LandIS. With NSRI a registered soil Spatial Data Infrastructure for England and Wales, this paper examines how LandIS information could be made further compliant with the principles and requirements of INSPIRE.