A new look for Scotland's Soils website

The website is the result of a collaboration to provide land managers, public bodies, the scientific community and members of the public with open access to decades of data relating to Scotland's soils.

A new look version of the Scotland’s Soils website has been launched, in a drive to promote access to information on one of Scotland’s most valuable natural assets.

The Scotland’s Soils website is part of the Scotland’s Environment Web family, and provides data and information on Scotland’s soils. Earlier this year the project team carried out user analysis of the website. This was in response to recognising that the majority of users needed data already interpreted for their specific needs to enable them to use it in their day-to-day decision making. User analysis has helped understand what tasks people used soil data and information for and identified areas where improvements could be made.

The first phase of development focused on improving the structure, making the site easier to navigate and find data. The site is very much a work in progress, with more development planned, but the project team would like to gather feedback on the changes made so far.

The development site is now available to users and feedback is welcome. The new look Scotland’s Soils website is available at http://soils.environment.gov.scot.

Over the coming months the project team will be making further changes to the site, including user testing and developing the information available to help support decision making. If you have any feedback on the Scotland’s Soils development site or would like to take part in user testing, please get in touch by emailing the project team.

The website is the result of a collaboration between the Scottish Government, the James Hutton Institute, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and Forestry Commission Scotland to provide land managers, public bodies, the scientific community and members of the public with open access to decades of data relating to our soils.