Scotland's Soil Data

Soil Mapping is one of the pillars to the challenge of sustainable development - Jeffrey Sachs, 2009

To view a wide range of soil and land capability maps online please visit Scotland's Soils website or the National Library of Scotland where you can view a selection of the published 1:63,360 (1 inch to the mile) scale maps. A number of soil datasets can be downloaded from the James Hutton Institute website including:

• 1:25,000 Soil Map (partial cover)
• 1:250,000 National Soil Map
• National Soils Inventory for Scotland
• Soil Thematic Maps
• Land Capability Maps

Soil maps

Soil maps display the distribution of different soil types across the land based on what you can see in the field. The amount of detail shown on a map depends on its scale. For example, smaller scale maps (e.g. 1:250,000) will show less detail than larger scale maps (e.g. 1:25,000).  Below you can access the data from two small-scale national maps - the 1:250,000 National Soil Map of Scotland and Scotland’s soils classified according to the World Reference Base (WRB). More detailed 1:25,000 maps are also available for much of Scotland’s cultivated agricultural soils and the adjacent uplands and only provide partial cover of Scotland. The data is made available under a licence that freely grants non-commercial use and is available from here. If you wish to include our data in a product that you intend to sell then please contact us. Our email contact is at Soil Survey Scotland.

National Soils Inventory for Scotland - Point data

The National Soil Inventory of Scotland (NSIS 1978-88) dataset was collected at sampling points arranged on a 10 km grid across the country. Each sampling point is described and a wide range of soil properties are measured and analysed. These range from contextual information describing the surrounding landscape (such as slope and vegetation), down to detailed chemical analyses of each horizon within the soil profile. There are 721 sites in total. This dataset should be cited as: 'Lilly, A., Bell, J.S., Hudson, G., Nolan, A.J. & Towers. W. (Compilers) (2010). National soil inventory of Scotland (NSIS_1); site location, sampling and profile description protocols. (1978-1988). Technical Bulletin. Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.4650230.

Thematic Maps and Capability maps

Thematic maps show the distribution of a specific soil property or theme, such as topsoil organic carbon content or soil texture.

Capability maps use soil data along with information on other properties, such as climate or landscape, to classify the land for a specific purpose such as the Land Capability for Agriculture Classification (LCA) – an assessment of the capacity of land to produce food. We strongly recommend that the 1:50,000 Land Capability for Agriculture is used in preference to 1:250,000. Where it exists (predominantly in the agricultural lowlands of the south and east of the country) the 1:50,000 scale map information is seen as the definitive mapped assessment. For a more site-specific query or to resolve a planning issue, we recommend that a further and very detailed site inspection is carried out. A scan of the printed handbook "Land Capability Classification for Agriculture" (Bibby, J. S., Douglas, H. A., Thomasson, A. J., Robertson, J. S. (1991). Land Capability for Agriculture, Aberdeen: Macaulay Land Use Research Institute) may be downloaded by clicking here.

Risk Maps

The Risk maps show a series of simple indicators of the role of soils in determining risks to water quality. These indicators include the risk of soil erosion, leaching from soils, runoff and both the risk of topsoil and subsoil compaction occuring.