25 Year Environment Plan Outcome Indicator E7: Healthy soils – proposed method for a soil health indicator for England

This report outlines a proposed method for a soil health indicator for England. It is planned that this method will be used to produce results for use against the 25 Year Environment Plan’s Outcome Indicator Framework, to be published by JNCC as an Official Statistic in Development. Such results are not presented within this document itself, as the field data required to feed into the models are not yet publicly available. The planned approach is published here to facilitate early user input and feedback. An updated version of this document (including any further method changes made between this proposal and final methods used to calculate the indicator) will be published as the accompanying technical document alongside the ultimate Official Statistic in Development publication.

Many ecosystem services (ES) rely on healthy soils for their delivery. The importance of monitoring and managing soil health is highlighted in a number of recent policy documents and government work areas, such as the Environmental Improvement Plan, the ‘State of the Environment: Soil’ report and the Net Zero Strategy. Understanding progress against such policies requires the ability to measure and track changes in soil health over time. This project therefore aims to outline a proposed method for an indicator of soil health in England. It builds on a previous proof-of-concept project, but aims to apply the concepts developed there to produce a national statistic, rather than a mapped output aimed at local scale stakeholders. The next step will be to publish an initial, interim statistic, which can be improved on iteratively.

Accompanying the report is an annex (Annex 1: 'Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment Programme data collection and analysis: progress to date'), which outlines an illustrative example of soil monitoring data collection and analysis from the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) programme.

These resources may not be fully accessible for all users. If you need copies in a different or more accessible format, please contact Communications@jncc.gov.uk.