It is estimated that soil contains approximately three times as much as carbon as the atmosphere, and improving soil management thus plays a critical in mitigating climate change. However, our current understanding of the effects of soil management on carbon cycling and the emission of major greenhouse gases is limited. Carbon effluxes from soils are largely controlled by root respiration, and microbial respiration of soil organic matter including rhizospheric organic carbon. All of these processes are highly sensitive to soil structure. Using the distributed fiber optic sensing technology and underground wireless sensor network technology, this project aims to link the changes in soil structure to the measured concentrations of major greenhouse gases. This will improve the scientific understanding of how carbon loading from vegetated land occurs at field scale. The outreach strategy is focused on engaging with the wider community and the profession to raise awareness of the issues and provide tools to explore solutions.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and Colorado School of Mines (CSM), in collaboration with the research group at Rothamsted Research (RR) in the UK, will develop spatially distributed measurement technology, based on the use of buried fiber optics and wireless sensor network sensors, to measure soil strain, water content and the concentrations of various soil gases. It aims to accurately measure critical soil-water parameters at low-cost at the field scale. The research hypothesis that links soil gas generation to soil structure changes will be examined by conducting measurements in the laboratory using the coupled porous media/climate wind tunnel facility at CSM and in the field at RR. These data will be used to explore the scope for including microscopic soil structure in soil carbon models and hence improve our fundamental understanding of biochemical processes occurring across various spatial scales. These new models will in the future allow the effects of soil management on carbon dynamics to be predicted, and hence give an understanding of the impact of different soil management strategies (e.g. tillage) on soil sustainability.
This project was awarded through the "Signals in the Soil (SitS)"opportunity, a collaborative solicitation that involves the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) and the following United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) research councils: 1) The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), 2) the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), 3) the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
