Use of Soil Fingerprinting Approaches for Ascertaining Change Over Time.

The National Soil Inventory of Scotland (NSIS) sites were first sampled around 30 years ago, at a time of agricultural expansion and intensification, significant woodland expansion, and when air pollution abatement strategies were being developed and implemented. There have been changes in land use and environmental conditions since the last sampling and the current re-sampling programme provides a unique opportunity to quantify the impacts of those changes on the characteristics of soils, thus providing evidence from which to develop policies to protect our soils.

Reporting on this preliminary data for Scotland, we show that through the careful re-analysis of archived soil along with the analysis of newly sampled soil using XRD, FTIR, n-alkane and alcohol signatures, and through adoption of appropriate statistical approaches, more objective and higher confidence is gained in how representative soils are. Through XRD, and mineral regions of the FTIR spectra, any observed differences would likely suggest relocation error, but change in soil organic components reflects aboveground vegetation input changes.  Changes were detected in the organic signatures in the topsoil of some soil types and closer examination of changes in the surface soil and of a wider range of markers is underway, reflecting pedological change. This paper presents preliminary observations which are currently being evaluated using a larger dataset covering a 20km grid sampling of Scotland.

Acknowledgements: RERAD of the Scottish Government for funding this research.