Carbon and nitrogen contents of soil organic matter fractions, soil organic carbon, total soil nitrogen, and soil organic matter of 100 topsoil samples from the UKCEH Countryside Survey, Great Britain, 2019-2020 v2

https://doi.org/10.5285/29cd5386-bc2e-4d70-a6a5-0d7dc7513dc6

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Carbon and nitrogen content (g per g soil) of the free-light fraction (LF), the occluded particulate fraction (OF), the mineral associated organic matter fraction (MAOM), the particulate organic matter (POM = LF+OF), soil organic carbon (SOC), total soil nitrogen (TN) and soil organic matter (SOM from loss-on-ignition) of 100 topsoil samples (0-15 cm) from the UKCEH Countryside Survey 2019/20 are presented.
Associated and historic soil and vegetation data is available through the Countryside Survey data collection: https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/documents/2069de82-619d-4751-9904-aec8500d07e6

Publication date: 2025-10-10

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Format

Comma-separated values (CSV)

Spatial information

Study area

Spatial representation type

Tabular (text)

Spatial reference system

WGS 84

Temporal information

Temporal extent

2019-01-01 to 2020-12-31

Provenance & quality

Archived Countryside survey topsoil samples (0-15 cm) were used. These were sieved (2 mm) and airdried prior to archiving.
Thermo-Gravimetric Analysis was performed in four steps using a LECO TGA701. 10 g of samples were heated from 25 degrees C to 105 degrees C (kept constant for 3 h) to determine the hygroscopic moisture. The mass loss between 105 degrees C and 375 degrees C (kept constant for 15.75 h) was used to calculate the soil organic matter content (SOM), the mass loss between 650 degrees C and 100 degrees C gives information on calcium carbonate content of the soils.
Soil organic matter fractions were separated via density fractionation using sodium polytungstene at 1.8 g cm-3). In the first step, the free light fraction (LF-fraction) was separated using 2.5 g archived soil. The pellet was re-suspended, and the occluded fraction was separated and discarded. The residual material was associated with the mineral associated organic matter fraction (MAOM fraction) after re-suspension and cleaning. Two internal standards were used in each batch as well as 10% of replicated samples to account for accuracy and precision.
Carbon and nitrogen contents were measured on a subsample of archived soil, and the LF and MAOM fractions using an Elementar Vario-Elemental analyser (Elementaranalysensysteme GmbH, Hanau, Germany). The UKAS accredited method SOP3102 was used.
Carbon and nitrogen mass fractions were calculated for the LF and MAOM fractions, and the soil. Mass fractions of the occluded fraction (OF) and the particulate organic matter fraction (POM) were calculated using the mass balance equation.
Total soil carbon and MAOM-C are corrected for calcite-C content; LF, OF and POM fractions are not corrected for calcite content because no minerals are expected to be present in organic matter.
LF, MAOM, total soil, and SOC (total soil carbon minus calciate-carbon) were corrected for hygroscopic water content. The OF and POM fractions are automatically corrected for hygroscopic water as they are calculated from corrected masses.

Licensing and constraints

This dataset is available under the terms of the Open Government Licence

Cite this dataset as:

Lebron, I.; Reinsch, S.; Bentley, L.; Cosby, B.J.; Emmett, B.A.; Keenan, P.; Pereira, G.; Robinson, D.A. (2025). Carbon and nitrogen contents of soil organic matter fractions, soil organic carbon, total soil nitrogen, and soil organic matter of 100 topsoil samples from the UKCEH Countryside Survey, Great Britain, 2019-2020 v2. NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/29cd5386-bc2e-4d70-a6a5-0d7dc7513dc6

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