Soil Science Education and Communication
I love to share my passion for soils with the general audience. Come and learn with me about this living, complex, and fascinating thing called: SOILS, or like most of you like to called it: DIRT.
Artistic representation of soils
This complex stuff called soil organic matter (3MT Transcript)
Take away:
Start here: By the show of hands, how many of you have heard about global warming? Would you believe me if I told you that soils, or like most of you called it: DIRT, can help us to mitigate climate change?
My name is Karen Moran-Rivera, and I study how soils can capture carbon from the atmosphere.
First, soils aren’t just the brown looking thing that gets everywhere. They are actually the support medium for food production, provide habitat for billions of microbes, and they clean our drinking water. Something really impressive about soils is that they can keep carbon out of the atmosphere. You see, globally, soils store 2400 gigatons of carbon. This represents about 4% of the annual global emission from fossil fuels. However, not all soil carbon is the same.
Soil carbon is stored in something called: organic matter. Organic matter is really complex because is composed of chemicals, minerals, and microbes interacting with each other. An important distinction of organic matter is that it can store carbon as plant residues, like leaves and roots, or in mineral- bonds. The plant residues, or as soil scientists like to call it: particulate organic matter, is the stuff that you can see in the soil. On the other hand, the organic matter contained in mineral bonds is microscopic and usually composed of dead microbes or microbial products. These two types of organic matter also have different turn overtimes.
It helps me to think about these types of soil carbon as checking and saving account. The checking account represents the particulate organic matter. It gets your paycheck every month, but it is spent really fast. The mineral-organic matter is like a saving account. It has a small contribution every paycheck, but it is spent at a slower speed. Now, we all want to help soils to keep this complex stuff for long periods. But it’s important to first quantify how much carbon we have in the checking and the savings account; as well as determine how fast are we spending, and how much we can add to each account.
The really cool part about my research is that I am applying these concepts to tropical lands in Hawaii. You see, tropical lands cover about 40% of the Earth's surface area and have been largely underrepresented in the global carbon accounting. If we don't know what it's happening in 40% of the land, how can we make good projections about soil carbon? Once again, my name is Karen Moran-Rivera. Thank you for your time.
Sources: Lavallee & Cotrufo 2020; Minasny et al., 2017.
- Soil can capture carbon from the atmosphere.
- Not all soil carbon is the same.
- Tropical lands have been largely underrepresented in the global carbon accounting.
Start here: By the show of hands, how many of you have heard about global warming? Would you believe me if I told you that soils, or like most of you called it: DIRT, can help us to mitigate climate change?
My name is Karen Moran-Rivera, and I study how soils can capture carbon from the atmosphere.
First, soils aren’t just the brown looking thing that gets everywhere. They are actually the support medium for food production, provide habitat for billions of microbes, and they clean our drinking water. Something really impressive about soils is that they can keep carbon out of the atmosphere. You see, globally, soils store 2400 gigatons of carbon. This represents about 4% of the annual global emission from fossil fuels. However, not all soil carbon is the same.
Soil carbon is stored in something called: organic matter. Organic matter is really complex because is composed of chemicals, minerals, and microbes interacting with each other. An important distinction of organic matter is that it can store carbon as plant residues, like leaves and roots, or in mineral- bonds. The plant residues, or as soil scientists like to call it: particulate organic matter, is the stuff that you can see in the soil. On the other hand, the organic matter contained in mineral bonds is microscopic and usually composed of dead microbes or microbial products. These two types of organic matter also have different turn overtimes.
It helps me to think about these types of soil carbon as checking and saving account. The checking account represents the particulate organic matter. It gets your paycheck every month, but it is spent really fast. The mineral-organic matter is like a saving account. It has a small contribution every paycheck, but it is spent at a slower speed. Now, we all want to help soils to keep this complex stuff for long periods. But it’s important to first quantify how much carbon we have in the checking and the savings account; as well as determine how fast are we spending, and how much we can add to each account.
The really cool part about my research is that I am applying these concepts to tropical lands in Hawaii. You see, tropical lands cover about 40% of the Earth's surface area and have been largely underrepresented in the global carbon accounting. If we don't know what it's happening in 40% of the land, how can we make good projections about soil carbon? Once again, my name is Karen Moran-Rivera. Thank you for your time.
Sources: Lavallee & Cotrufo 2020; Minasny et al., 2017.
How to build soils with good quality material? (3MT Transcript)
Take away:
Start here: Flash news: intensive food production has caused land degradation around the globe. Oh no! A new report shows that climate change will reduce food production and increase environmental damage. Farmers are conflicted and have to choose between the environment or their livelihoods. We will update you after the break.
Hi. My name is Karen Morán-Rivera, and I help farmers to make tough decisions about soil and environmental management.
Imagine that soils are like a city building. Every building has its construction blocks, water pipes, and energy coming through different cables. Let’s also imagine that farmers are civil engineers in charge of this building.
They have to choose whether to use expensive or cheap material, low or high-quality material, and they have to make sure that this building is safe for YOU. If the farmer chooses to use the cheap and low-quality material. This building can be livable for only a few years, but then it might start falling apart, causing humans deaths. On the other hand, if the farmer chooses to use expensive and high-quality material. This building will be livable for a longer period, but it might be too expensive for the farmers to actually buy this good material.
So, in my research, I ask whether the farmers should invest in the expensive material or if they are better off using the cheap material. I like to think that cheap material is the use of intensive management practices. While we can produce huge amounts of food with these practices, we are also making a poor-quality building, degrading our soils, and causing environmental damage. On the other hand, the expensive material is something called cover crops. A cover crop isn’t planted to be harvested or to produced profits. It’s planted to protect our soils from degradation during wintertime.
Now, remember we are talking about a city building with blocks, water pipes, and energy coming through different cables. So, this is how cover crops work: First, cover crops are like good quality water pipes. They help soils to retain water even during warm years. Cover crops residues, like leaves and roots, are like good quality building blocks and improve soil structure. At the same time, these residues are like energy cables that help microbes to eat the dead plants and recycle nutrients. In other words, cover crops are good material that helps farmers to build better soil.
According to my research, in future climate scenarios cover crops will not reduce farmers' profits. However, during very hot years cover crops can provide a 15% increase in profits. Showing that cover crops can benefit both farmer's livelihoods and the environment. Again, my name is Karen Moran Rivera. Thank you for your time.
- Soils are like a city building with construction blocks, water pipes, and electric cables.
- Cheap material is the use of intensive management practices.
- Cover crops are good material that helps farmers to build better soil.
- Cover crops can benefit both farmer's livelihoods and the environment.
Start here: Flash news: intensive food production has caused land degradation around the globe. Oh no! A new report shows that climate change will reduce food production and increase environmental damage. Farmers are conflicted and have to choose between the environment or their livelihoods. We will update you after the break.
Hi. My name is Karen Morán-Rivera, and I help farmers to make tough decisions about soil and environmental management.
Imagine that soils are like a city building. Every building has its construction blocks, water pipes, and energy coming through different cables. Let’s also imagine that farmers are civil engineers in charge of this building.
They have to choose whether to use expensive or cheap material, low or high-quality material, and they have to make sure that this building is safe for YOU. If the farmer chooses to use the cheap and low-quality material. This building can be livable for only a few years, but then it might start falling apart, causing humans deaths. On the other hand, if the farmer chooses to use expensive and high-quality material. This building will be livable for a longer period, but it might be too expensive for the farmers to actually buy this good material.
So, in my research, I ask whether the farmers should invest in the expensive material or if they are better off using the cheap material. I like to think that cheap material is the use of intensive management practices. While we can produce huge amounts of food with these practices, we are also making a poor-quality building, degrading our soils, and causing environmental damage. On the other hand, the expensive material is something called cover crops. A cover crop isn’t planted to be harvested or to produced profits. It’s planted to protect our soils from degradation during wintertime.
Now, remember we are talking about a city building with blocks, water pipes, and energy coming through different cables. So, this is how cover crops work: First, cover crops are like good quality water pipes. They help soils to retain water even during warm years. Cover crops residues, like leaves and roots, are like good quality building blocks and improve soil structure. At the same time, these residues are like energy cables that help microbes to eat the dead plants and recycle nutrients. In other words, cover crops are good material that helps farmers to build better soil.
According to my research, in future climate scenarios cover crops will not reduce farmers' profits. However, during very hot years cover crops can provide a 15% increase in profits. Showing that cover crops can benefit both farmer's livelihoods and the environment. Again, my name is Karen Moran Rivera. Thank you for your time.
Last updated: October, 2021