The State Environmental Monitoring - The monitoring of the chemistry of arable soils

The spatial dataset concerns the monitoring of the chemistry of Polish arable soils, which is carried out as a part of the soil quality monitoring subsystem of the State Environmental Monitoring, coordinated by the Chief Inspector of Environmental Protection. The purpose of the research is to observe changes in a wide range of soil characteristics, especially chemical properties, occurring at specific intervals of time under the influence of agricultural and non-agricultural human activity. The research is carried out in 5-year cycles, starting from 1995, as part of the national network, which consists of 216 measuring and control points, located on agricultural soils throughout the country. The following parameters will be determined in the samples collected at designated soil profile sites: grain-size composition (8 fractions), % of humus, % of CaCO3, pH, hydrolytic acidity, exchangeable acidity, the contents of plant-assimilable forms of phosphorous (P2O5), potassium (K2O), magnesium (Mg) and sulphur (S-SO42-), the contents of: total nitrogen, organic carbon, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pesticides including organochlorine pesticides, exchangeable calcium, potassium, magnesium and sodium, electric conductivity and radioactivity. Moreover, calculated parameters will include: the C:N ratio, soil salinity, cation exchange capacity, the sum of exchangeable bases and the degree of base saturation. Additionally, the following parameters will be measured: the contents of soluble forms of: calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, aluminium, iron, phosphorous, manganese, cadmium, copper, chromium, nickel, lead, zinc, cobalt, vanadium, lithium, beryllium, boron, strontium and lanthanum.