Latest news with #AI4SoilHealth
Agriland
01-08-2025
- Health
- Agriland
Time of Sampling May Affect Eu Soil Health Monitoring Study
An organisation that is building a comprehensive map of European soils and their condition is warning that the EU's Soil Monitoring Law may be omitting a vital factor in assessing soil health in the bloc. The EU plans to record and map the various soil types and soil health throughout the bloc, as envisaged through its proposed Soil Monitoring Law. The law will make the monitoring of soil health mandatory, as part of efforts to have all soils in a healthy condition by 2050, in line with the EU Zero Pollution ambition. Article 31 of the draft law states: "It is therefore appropriate to lay down criteria for sampling points that are representative of the soil condition under different soil types, climatic conditions, and land use." The three variables mentioned will play a vital role in deciding where soils should be sampled in the vast area that the EU covers. However, evidence is now emerging that a fourth variable should also be included and that is the time of sampling, which could significantly affect the results and render the overall picture inaccurate if not included. The warning comes from an article published by AI 4 Soil Health, an organisation which is building a comprehensive map of European soils and their condition. Soil sampling is the only way to really get to know a soil. Image: Petrol Post Driver The author, Dr. Peter Lehmann of ETH University Zurich, makes reference to a study carried out in Switzerland which notes how water-absorbing capabilities of soils can very throughout the year, depending on weather patterns. Although the research was carried out in natural forest, the findings indicate that all soils - wherever their location and use - will be subject to similar influences. If these factors are not included in the final analysis for monitoring soil health, then the AI $ Soil Health map will likely fail to be within the 5% margin of error required by the EU. The research demonstrated that the health of the soil can change significantly during dry summer months. A water repellent layer can form at the surface as the organic chemistry of this zone changes in response to prolonged drought. Soil can appear less healthy when dry Those tending the land are well aware of this affect, as a summer shower will often not be absorbed by the soil, it takes a good soak for the soil to start absorbing the water. It is the top 2cm that are responsible for this, which can give healthy, well-structured soil a water-resistant cap that adversely affects essential soil functions further on down the soil profile. A further aspect of the soil function studied was the action of two extracellular soil enzymes that play an important role in the decomposition of organic carbon compounds and how they might be affected by soil conditions. The study showed that one enzyme was more affected by the soil moisture while the other responded more to soil temperature,. This reinforced the notion that weather patterns can distort our present assessments of soil health, and may have been doing so for some time. The depth and type of cultivation may alter the soil's response to drought and so effect its apparent health Dr. Lehmann concluded that the timing of measurements is crucial and depends on which specific soil functions are being assessed. He also notes that another key lesson is the importance of where measurements are taken. "The top surface layer plays a critical role in determining whether a soil can provide essential services like water storage and support for plant growth, or whether it should be considered unhealthy." he notes. Just on this last point, the sun wheel-type implements that are sold as mechanical weeders here in Ireland are marketed as crust-breaking tools on the continent and said to work well as such when used in dry periods. Sun wheel implements will keep the layer of soil open for rain to penetrate. It is perhaps the disturbance of this water-repellent top layer of soil that is the secret to their success in drier areas of the EU, making them generally superfluous here in damper conditions.
Agriland
29-05-2025
- Health
- Agriland
New EU map of soil health to ‘revolutionise' soil management
A new EU Soil Health Data Cube layered map will revolutionise how farmers, land managers and policy makers sustainably manage soil in Europe. It could potentially allow scientists to peer into the future and model solutions for the worst impacts of climate change. Almost one hundred scientists have contributed to the project, which integrates hundreds of thousands of observations and data points on soil, climate and vegetation using a multidimensional matrix powered by artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. The Soil Health Data Cube currently spans from the year 2000 up to 2022 and is already 30TB in size. This new tool allows scientists and researchers to obtain open data representing European landscape and soil properties in space and time, and can potentially be used to simulate complex scenarios and accurately predict, test and model real world solutions. AI 4 Soil Health scientist and OpenGeoHub Foundation director, Tomislav Hengl said: 'This powerful tool will help policy makers, farmers and land managers better manage our soils for biodiversity, carbon storage and productive farmland. 'Using AI tools and open-source data we have created a prototype digital-earth-twin – a map of European soil health which will enable users to analyse and test soil management practices to deliver better outcomes and environmental benefits and to predict the impact of different climate change scenarios. 'This is probably the most sophisticated soil health modelling framework to date and will be an indispensable tool for those involved in regenerative agriculture, carbon farming, and those looking to change farming land use systems – such as realising soil carbon sequestration potential, shifting to agroforestry and similar. 'We will be able to provide the modelling capability to empower them with real world evidence while significantly reducing the cost, time and labour involved in traditional soil monitoring practices,' he added. Soil Health Data Cube map The Soil Health Data Cube map enables users to monitor key soil health factors, including pH levels, soil carbon, and biological parameters over time with weather and climate data. Its spatial resolution is down to 20m or 30m with the addition of vegetation cover and most recently over 20 million European crop field boundaries. So, farmers will be able to access and view an accurate picture of the farms exploring historical and future patterns of soil health based on different climatic and land use scenarios. This is the first version, but the team will continue to develop the data cube over the next three years by populating it with significant volumes of additional point data together with new remote sensing data which will advance its ability to predict and model future scenarios to new levels of detail and accuracy. This marks a significant milestone for the AI 4 Soil Health project team who are one of a group of Horizon Europe projects which fit under the EU's and the Soil Health Mission for 2030. AI 4 SoilHealth is working with over 20 partner organisations to develop practical experiments on the ground to showcase regenerative practices to ensure good measurement tools are at the heart of soil recovery. AI 4 Soil Health's project manager Mogens Humlekrog Greve from Aarhus University said: 'With the EU's Soil Health Monitoring Law under consideration, this innovation gives us an incredibly useful way of identifying regions where soil health is at risk, highlighting areas that need urgent restoration. 'This holistic approach enables continuous monitoring and detailed insights into soil health across Europe, promoting better soil management practices. 'We are proud that the data is open and available to a diverse range of users so everyone can benefit.' Politicians, scientists and national agencies will be able to make better, faster decisions by accessing data to analyse and predict declining crop production, or the impact of changing land use and scale up support for biodiversity. The AI 4 Soil Health partnership members have stated that they are confident that they will have a soil health app available in 2026 which will make this data available to all and allow farmers to benefit from this complex analysis on their mobile phone.
