Soil: Standards
(asked on 10th January 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what soil moisture levels were in each month from October 2016 in (a) Kent, (b) Essex, (c) Hertfordshire, (d) Hampshire, (e) Bedfordshire, (f) Surrey, (g) East Sussex, (h) West Sussex, (i) Wiltshire, (j) Dorset and (k) Buckinghamshire; and if he will make a statement.
Calculations for the Soil Moisture Deficit (SMD) on the last day of each month from October 2016 are set out in the table below in millimetres:
County | 31 October 2016 | 30 November 2016 | 31 December 2016 |
(a) Kent | 96.4 | 31.0 | 26.2 |
(b) Essex | 96.8 | 42.1 | 38.2 |
(c) Hertfordshire | 97.8 | 30.1 | 23.2 |
(d) Hampshire | 98.9 | 33.2 | 23.9 |
(e) Bedfordshire | 93.3 | 27.6 | 13.7 |
(f) Surrey | 92.4 | 25.0 | 19.8 |
(g) East Sussex | 112.5 | 26.2 | 15.7 |
(h) West Sussex | 84.7 | 20.6 | 12.6 |
(i) Wiltshire | 70.2 | 11.4 | 6.3 |
(j) Dorset | 65.5 | 9.4 | 2.6 |
(k) Buckinghamshire | 100.7 | 29.3 | 18.7 |
The figures apply to real land use (e.g. proportions of urban, grass or crops) and for a soil with water holding capacity at the median level for the soils in each county. SMD is produced on 40km squares; for this purpose they have been weighted to produce a county average according to the percentage of each square that lies within each county. The data presented comes from the Met Office Rainfall and Evaporation Calculation System (MORECS). | |||