In addition to sustaining agricultural productivity by researching fundamental soil aspects such as fertility, structure, and nutrient cycling, soil science researchers have responded to global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, and food security by expanding to encompass broader themes: climate resilience, ecosystem services, microbial ecology, sustainable land management.
In the field and lab, soil physics research examines hydraulic, thermal, and structural properties to support a wide range of environmental, agricultural, and infrastructure needs.
The SATURO infiltrometer combines automation and simplified data analysis, and it’s less prone to error than other methods. For these reasons, the USDA National Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) Soil Survey Team and the Soil Health Institute have both adopted the SATURO as the standard method of measuring saturated hydraulic conductivity and the Soil Health Institute considers it a tier 1 indicator for soil health assessments.
Near the Fukushima disaster site, scientists and citizens work tirelessly to clean radiation from affected farmland soils. Each weekend, they travel to a small village near Fukushima and labor to rehabilitate the land.
Measuring the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum across Australia comes in a wide variety of applications thanks to the wildly differing landscapes.
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