Soil monitoring:

Measuring the pulse of the planet!

Dr David A. Robinson

NERC KE Fellow:Transforming the economic and social visibility of soils

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology

Bangor, UK

Soils support food, feed and fibre productionStore carbon, nutrients and water Regulate floods, droughts, heatwavesFilter and recycle, water and wasteHabitat and genetic resource, e.g.They are vulnerable to pollution, sealing, erosion!

Why soils?

Soil has hidden valueThere are more organisms in a tablespoon of soil than there are humans on the planetSSSA; 25% of global biodiversity is estimated to be in soil

2015 Nobel Prize for MedicineWas awarded for medicine extracted from soil

1952 Dr. Selman Waksman cultured Streptomycin from a soil borne microbe

Soil might be helping power your iphone!

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/eurscientists-find-rare-earths-in-ocean-floor-sci-rare-earths/story-e6frg8y6-1226086964011http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/2013/01/16/rare-earths-found-in-jamaica-s-red-soil-official

Soil containing rare earth minerals being loaded at port in east China for export to Japan. (Sept. 2010 photo)

China controls the global supply of rare earths, a group of minerals critical to the production of high-tech products, from cell phones, ipads and televisions to missile defense systems.

China has 30% of world supply and controls 90% of production

Rare earths found in Jamaica's red soil

Rare earths. Clockwise from top center: praseodymium, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, samarium, and gadolinium.

Subsidence, hope it’s not your house!

BGS

The Association of British Insurers predicts that subsidence (downward movement of the ground surface) claims will reach £600 million a year by 2050

Heat waves and soil moisture

European Environment Agency

It’s estimated that low soil moisture levels during 2003 contributed an extra 2oC to the European heatwave.

Seneviratne, et al. (2006) Nature

It’s projected to get drier in summer in England and Wales.

More than 20,000 people died

EU: Soil Thematic Strategy Economic Valuation

Robinson et al., 2011

8 threats:

1) erosion: €0.7 – 14.0 billion2) organic matter decline: €3.4 – 5.6 billion3) compaction: no current estimate possible,4) salinisation: €158 – 321 million5) landslides: up to €1.2 billion (event dependent)6) contamination: €2.4 – 17.3 billion7) sealing: no current estimate possible (9% of EU covered by infrastructure)8) biodiversity decline: no current estimate possible

In the UK the market price of 1 tonne of soil is ~£30At this price the topsoil in a field is worth ~£60,000, ~10 times the land value

U.N. Intergovernmental Panel Report, 2015

The Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS) World Soil Resources Report (SWSR) proposes that the following four actions are the greatest priorities to stabilize or reverse over exploitation of global soil resources:

1. Minimize further degradation 2. Stabilize increase soil organic matter 3. Act to stabilize or reduce global N and P fertilizer use 4. Develop monitoring systems to determine the current state and trend of soil

condition.

Evidence review: Timely!Scope: provide evidence on sustainable soil management for the delivery of three key ecosystem services (ES): • food production;

• water and nutrient cycling; and

• climate change mitigation.

It focuses on soil quality and management on agricultural land and peatlands; and aims to identify evidence gaps and priorities for new research to guide future soils policy.

Why monitor?What monitoring do we conduct?What do we need to monitor for?

Why do we monitor?

Countryside Survey

Informing Defra, e.g.

Soil change, stop declines, target restoration, protect our future industry

Informing future policy ONS,

Natural capital and Ecosystem Accounting

Direct Policy impact Early warning Informing the public Generating new scientific understanding

Soils with pH above 8.3 are on the rise.

Potential structural vulnerability!

D.A. Robinson

Monitoring approaches

• Monitoring: site based complimenting experiments

• Monitoring: survey based

Rothamsted long-term plots

Lawes and Gilbert carried out analyses of wheat grain and straw for N, P, K, Ca, Mg and Na content on proportionally bulked samples from 10 plots, representing four ten-year periods (1852-1861, 1862-1871, 1872-1881 and 1882-1891).

Broadbalk crop nutrient experiments

The longest in the world!

NERC CEH Carbon catchments

Peat contains an estimated half of UK Carbon

Defra Lowland Peat Site network

Near-natural

Re-wetted

Extensive grassland

Extraction site

Intensive grassland

Arable

NERC CEH Cosmic-ray soil moisture monitoring network

Contributes to weather,climate, and flood/drought modelling and understanding

Soil survey monitoring• LandIS - includes the National Soil Map (NATMAP), soil series attribute and function values

(SOILSERIES), the National Soils Inventory (NSI), the Hydrology of Soil Types (HOST) and other soil data sets

• Soilscapes (data available from Cranfield University; maps available on MAGIC – see below) • Muliti-Agency Geographic Information for the Countryside (MAGIC) - the government

website providing geographic information on rural, urban, coastal and marine environments across Great Britain

• Representative Soil Sampling Scheme (RSSS) • Countryside Survey (CS) • Environment Change Network (ECN) • G-BASE • Agricultural Land Classification (ALC) • Spatial Environmental Information System for Modelling the Impact of Chemicals (SEISMIC) • National Soils Inventory (NSI) • Hydrology of Soil Types (HOST) • Forestry Commission Soil Classification (FCSC)

Scotland, has additional Scottish datasets available

Countryside Survey and the National Soil Survey

State and change detectionefficient, statistically robust

Good for soil mapping and new phenomena detection

Repeated: 1978, 1998, 2007Worlds longest running statistical change survey

There’s currently no soil monitoring program in EnglandWales has the Glastir Monitoring and Evaluation Program (GMEP) on an annual cycle

Original sampling around 1980 with partial resamplings in the mid-1990s.

2008 exploration of new soil monitoring design

Black et al., 2008

1. Model-based, systematic (grid) sampling

2. Model-based, optimised grid sampling

3. Design-based, stratified random sampling

4. Design-based, cluster sampling

• Lack of bias, best estimate of

mean and variance.

• Simplicity.

• Lack of dependence on

spatial covariance model

assumptions.

• Flexibility with respect to

analysis post-sampling.

• Greater flexibility for estimating mean

changes according to a new reporting class

that is not nested within the one used for the

initial design

• Relatively efficient at detecting effects

associated with factors not yet known.

• Most efficient approach should maps of status

or change

Stratified random sampling:Statistically robust and efficient for detecting change

Grid sampling:Efficient for mapping and detecting new phenomena

Monitoring metrics, 13 Soil Quality Indicators

Black et al., 2008

CS CS CS

CS CS CS

CS now contains soil biology• soil bacterial biodiversity • mesofauna biodiversity

Soil Quality Indicators

Black et al., 2008

Under represented or missing indicators:

• Biodiversity / biology• Soil physical, structure /

hydrology

Evidence review foundDespite significant progress with interpreting indicator values, major scientific and practical issues remain to be addressed.

These include the development of indicator reference values for different combinations of land use, soil type and climate; and obtaining a better predictive understanding of the relationships between soil degradation, soil biodiversity and ES delivery (Pulleman et al., 2012). p24

Under represented or missing indicators:

• Soil biology, biodiversity• Soil physical, structure / hydrology

Review found: Indicators

Further research is needed to better understand: • The nature of SOC, particularly the 'light' or 'fresh' fraction and its influence on soil

properties under different land uses. • The implications of manufactured fertiliser use for C sequestration and storage and the

balance between climate change mitigation considerations and food production. • The key factors and processes influencing C fluxes in peatlands. • The functional ecology of AMF and other soil biota in different agricultural systems and

possible synergies and antagonisms with a need for sustainable intensification. • The importance of fungal diversity in C and nutrient cycling. • How soil biodiversity is related to the provision of multiple ecosystem services. • How to value the ES provided by SOC and soil biodiversity. p47

Very little on soil structure

What can we expect from monitoring?

Understanding Soil Change

Soil Organic Carbon Decline in Arable Systems

4% nice to have3%, sensible

While there are clear relationships between SOC and parameters for environmental interaction, evidence for unambiguous breakpoints or trigger values is less clear.

• Water storage decreases at less than 4% SOC; and where soil depths are 15cm orless, pesticide leaching increases more sharply at SOC levels below ~3%.

Countryside Survey GB average

WALES

NSI data

Webb et al., 2001The mean SOC in arable/ley cultivation:1980 3.4%1995 2.8 %a loss rate equivalent to 0.04 %/yr.

Potential future challenge?

If we adopt a strategy like the 4 per 1000, we will need to monitor soil carbon

How is soil pH recovering from air pollution?

CS indicates significant increase in soil pH across GB between 1978 and 2007

Mineral soils across GB

Reduction in SO2 deposition on land

Soil pH

SO2 deposition areas

Early Warning: occurrence of soils with pH > 8.3

Lebron et al., 2010 Defra report

Soils with pH above 8.3 are vulnerable to structural degradation and collapse reducing crop yields.

Opportunity: Citizen Science, Soil Community Tools

The evidence suggests that the development of a strategic set of measured SQI’s and the potential use of public participation in the measurement of certain suitable SQI’s merits further investigation. p33

200 site users per daymySoil 45,000 usersCrowdsourcing capability

Independent vs biased

Citizen and industry science have an important role in monitoring, but can’t replace statistically robust, unbiased, professional monitoring

Soil pH at country level, Soil Survey, Countryside Survey, and farmer sampling

Arable

Grass

GMEP in Wales

Grey line, CS GB average

Green line, keep above

Red line, keep belowUnimproved grassland exceeds levels (10-16)?

Challenge: Identifying Ecosystem Service Trade-offs

Maskell et al. 2013 Journal Of Applied Ecology

We cann’t have everything, what should we aim for?

Upland peats Intensive arable

NPP

Challenge: Obtaining evidence of tipping points

Robinson et al., 2016 Sci Reports

Identification of tipping points is difficult, often requires long-term monitoring data, and in the case of the above example a little luck!

Recent research showing a drought induced shift in topsoil moisture storage

Challenge: linking monitoring to environmental accountingScope of environmental assets in the System of Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA)

There are seven individual components of the environment that are considered environmental assets in the Central Framework. They are:

1. mineral and energy resources, 2. land, 3. soil resources, 4. timber resources,5. aquatic resources, 6. other biological resources, and 7. Water resources.

Integrating information on soil resources with other measures of natural capital and economic activity remains one of the least developed areas of the United Nations System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA).

Obst, 2015 Nature

EU LUCAS Survey using CS approach

Between 2000 and 2010, intervention measures through the Common Agricultural Policy have reduced the rate of soil loss in the European Union by an average of 9.5% overall, and by 20% for arable lands.

Every 5 yrs, sparse GB 840Uses different protocols to GBDoesn’t measure above 1000mHas no physical or biological data other than texture.

Summary: Evidence Review

Soil monitoring should focus on determining the rate of change in soil properties and change in the proportion of soils within particular SQI value ranges, as such changes could have implications for soil functioning and the delivery of key ES. p16

It is important that information linking soil properties to soil function is developed in randomised and replicated field experiments. Long term experiments are also crucial for determining the relationship between SQI values, soil management and ES delivery.

Survey approach

Site based experimental approach

“Soils are now in the ‘front line’ of global environmental change—we need to be able to predict how they will respond to changing climate, vegetation, erosion and pollution.”

- Schmidt et al. (2011), Nature

The last country scale soil monitoring was 2007, there is no current scheme