HOST Classification

HOST class 19

Geology:

hard, coherent rock within one metre of the soil surface.

Landforms:

undulating, glacially scoured lowlands, in the high undulating mountain plateaux, and on summits with shallow frost-shattered debris and patterned ground. A wide range of slopes from gentle to very steep, but the land is invariably rocky or bouldery with well developed roches moutonnees in the Machars of Wigtonshire.

Soils:

freely drained brown earths, humus-iron podzols, subalpine soils and alpine soils (oroarctic soils).

Vegetation:

some mixed arable and dairy farming but mainly semi-natural grassland and moorland with occasional areas of broadleaved woodland and conifer plantations in the lowlands. Alpine azalea, lichens and sedges on the mountain tops.

Flow:

flow is vertical unsaturated flow with some lateral flow along the soil/rock interface.

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