Soil reports are generated by the Soil Information System of an environmental department (or municipality). A soil report shows all soil information of the selected plot with a radius of 25 meters around it.
Unfortunately, the soil reports are often an unreadably thick report with an excess of information from many different locations around the selected address.
Where things go wrong include the following. Often an adjacent plot is a very large plot. These are very large because these are often roads and other municipal parcels. These extend much further than 25 meters around the plot you want soil information from. Nevertheless, the generated soil report shows all the information about all plots that fall within the 25-meter radius. If a plot is several hundred meters long, then all that information is also included in the soil report. As a result, there are often all kinds of addresses or locations in a soil report that are not at all relevant to you and make it an unreadably thick report. And of the soil information that does reside in actually in a 25-meter radius around the selected plot, it’s very cluttered to be able to place the information where it belongs.
Also, the documents (soil studies, remediation evaluations, etc.) that are relevant are often not in the soil report via a download button and must be requested manually.
Can’t soil information be easily accessed?
However, the environmental services or municipalities themselves can see much clearer and more comprehensive soil information back at a given plot. They literally do this with 1 push of a button. Via a super clear map, one can click further in the BIS and also directly view and download all performed soil reports and remediation evaluations at the click of a button.
The soil reports generated by the same Soil Information System are one big chaos of information. Therefore, it would be much more convenient if realtors and home seekers themselves could also access a simplified soil information system to be able to see at a glance the relevant information about a parcel of land instead of a thick cluttered soil report.
This is what the soil information system of an environmental department, municipality or environmental consulting and research firm looks like.
Advice from environmental consulting and research firm
Are you sitting with an issue on a piece of property. For example, do you want to be sure if the soil is clean and have a historical or exploratory soil survey done? Or do you need advice on reading a soil report? Then ask an environmental research firm for a remote opinion or to conduct an exploratory soil survey on site. As a nationwide real estate agency, we have several good environmental maintenance agencies sitting throughout the country that we work with. If you would like to get in touch with one of these consulting companies in your area, please fill out this form and we’ll put you in touch with them (free service from us).