SOCiT is a free app aimed at farmers, land managers and other land users who want to know how much carbon is in the soil. It is available for download on the Apple App Store. The app uses information about the user’s position to access existing digital maps of environmental characteristics, such as elevation, climate and geology. Combining this information with data extracted automatically from a photograph of the soil of interest, it uses a mathematical model to predict topsoil organic matter and carbon content.
The SOCiT app has been designed to work in any rural agricultural area of Scotland, but will not operate in urban areas due to a lack of data availability on urban soils. The user also requires an image colour correction card that is supplied directly from the James Hutton Institute for free upon request.
The James Hutton Institute holds a huge amount of data on Scotland’s soils and the Scottish landscape, acquired over many years. This data has been used to develop the model underlying the app, meaning that users are provided with much of the environmental information just by recording their location. The app is user-friendly and contains instructions to enable the user to get an estimate of soil carbon content within minutes.
For more information and instructions on how to download the apps, please visit the James Hutton Institute website.
