OPAL earthworm data on NBN Gateway
The first dataset to come from the OPAL project is now available on the Gateway.
The OPAL Soil and Earthworm Survey was launched in spring 2009, as the first of the five National Surveys under OPAL. The survey was completed by the general public utilising a field guide prepared by the Imperial College OPAL Soil Centre in collaboration with staff from the Natural History Museum, the Environment Agency, the Field Studies Council, the University of Central Lancashire and the British Geological Society.
The survey aimed to achieve both scientific and social beneficial outcomes. Many aspects of the survey were aimed at stimulating involvement of the general public in environmental science for educational purposes through providing an introduction to the process of observing, measuring and interpreting environmental variables.
The main objective was to develop a method to identify areas of soil degradation through data on soil conditions and earthworms collected by people of all ages and ability.
Accuracy of the complete survey methodology is included in the attached report that highlights analytical work done to understand the data, and to identify various levels of confidence in the data. This procedure was adopted to clean the data from unreliable data before analysis of trends and patterns was done. The report has been included to guide the NBN with regard to the analytical methodologies developed by the National Soil Centre, and should be referred to for further details.
Image courtsey of Malcolm Storey – BioImages