The Woodland Carbon Code (www.forestry.gov.uk/carboncode) is the standard for UK woodland creation projects where carbon is accounted for. It is managed by the Forestry Commission. All projects have to register, and are publicly available on the UK Woodland Carbon Registry, managed by Markit (www.markit.com/product/registry). Once registered, they are validated at the outset and then verified at regular intervals throughout the project to check the amount of carbon sequestered, and that the project is sustainably managed. Woodland Carbon Code projects are expected to be managed in line with their agreed management plan (to ensure the predicted amount of carbon sequestration is realised), and a landowner has the responsibility to ensure future landowners are aware of the commitment of a particular land area to the Woodland Carbon Code, should an area of woodland be sold. This dataset gives the spatial extent of the Woodland Carbon Code projects, along with their current status, species type, and country. The majority of projects also receive a woodland creation grant, but some Woodland Carbon Code projects also include non-grant aided areas, or are not grant aided at all. Woodland Carbon Code statistics are produced quarterly on the last day of March, June, September and December and available from http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-93yjte. This layer will be updated each quarter alongside the statistics update.

The SOERE-ACBB is a set of three platforms involving long-term (> 20 yrs) field experiments initiated in 2005-2009. Long-term studies are carried out on biogeochemical cycles and functional biodiversity (flora and fauna) in agroecosystems as affected by land use, management practices and climate change. The SOERE-ACBB covers three land use and climatic regions in France: temporary grassland, permanent grassland and arable land. The main hypothesis tested is that the evolution of the systems in response to anthropogenic disturbances and land use management is strongly linked to the dynamics of quantitative and qualitative composition of soil organic matter (SOM) and vegetation diversity. SOERE-ACBB is unique in enabling analysis of feedback loops between management practices, biogeochemical cycles and biodiversity by offering opportunities for simultaneous study of interactions between SOM dynamics, microbial communities and vegetation under various management practices of agroecosystems. The platforms are designed to characterize the trajectories of key variables of the systems throughout time as changes occur – elements such as carbon, phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen and the diversity of plants and organisms in the soil – over years or decades. The platform’s instrumentation continuously quantifies a broad range of physical, chemical and biological variables: climate forcing variables, physical conditions in soil, water fluxes and quality, carbon and nitrogen storage in soil, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), floral, faunal and microbial diversity. The ability to monitor quantitative and qualitative changes in SOM over time will allow scientists to relate the overall evolution to energy balance and resource elements. Although SOERE-ACBB is a national infrastructure, scientists from other countries are welcome and can benefit from the acquired experience and knowledge. SOERE-ACBB has been involved in many international projects such as the Global Research Alliance and the International soil warming experiment network and is still a partner in a number of ongoing projects such as ExpeER, AnimalChange, Ecofinders and Multisward.