Soils are the foundation for life on earth, providing benefits to the whole world around us.
Why are soils important?
Food grown in soils provides around 98% of all the calories humans consume. Soils are also a valuable habitat for all sorts of organisms – by some estimates more than half of all terrestrial species live in the soil!
One teaspoon of healthy soil can have 10 billion organisms in it!
Soils can help fight climate change
Soils can store carbon. In fact, soils store more carbon than all the trees and plants, and the atmosphere combined!
Furthermore, healthy soils can help prevent or reduce flooding as they can absorb water and slowly release it into the rivers, instead of all the water entering the rivers at once.
Why do we need to improve our soils?
Unfortunately our soils are under threat. Some land management practices mean that soils are being sealed (covered with concrete), soil is being eroded and degraded, and carbon is being lost from soils.
How do soils impact river quality?
You might be wondering what the link between soil health and water quality is. The truth is that they are very connected to each other.
When it rains, the rainwater can run over the earth's surface and into the nearby waterbodies, this is known as run off. When this happens over soil, the rain can take the soil and all sorts of pollutants and chemicals with it and straight into the rivers. The extra soil in the water can make the water murky and can smother marine creatures.
Healthy soils, however, can help to improve water quality, as they are able to stick together better, reducing erosion and pollution, and can improve water infiltration, reducing water runoff.
In our area 67% of waterbodies are being impacted by pollution from agriculture and the River Rother is the most erodible catchment in the UK.
What is Soil SmART?
Soil SmARt is a collaborative project that is trialing different citizen science methodologies to assess soil health across the Arun and Rother catchment.
The project aims to improve our knowledge of soil health in the local area by co-designing an innovative, in-field citizen science monitoring framework which others can use in the future.
We are working with five dedicated “Soil SmART farmers” to develop and test a soil health toolkit for agricultural soils. So far, we have evaluated the most important soil metrics to measure and developed a Soil SmARt Toolkit which contains the tests; pH, water infiltration, visual evaluation of soil structure (VESS), soil texture (jar and hand texturing), Solvita soil respiration, earthworm counts, soil nutrients, bury your undies, and a slake test.
Once the toolkits had been assembled, we trained our farmers on how to use the equipment and how to upload their results. The farmers will be sampling over the autumn and spring to test the toolkits and understand their soils better. These results will be analysed and compared to industry standard soil sampling.
Working with partners the countryside and community research institute (CCRI), S. Woodley crop services, Southern Water and Cranfield University has enabled this project to assess variables and validate data in innovative ways.
The CCRI are monitoring collaboration and engagement througout the project giving us insight into how to best engage with farmers and with other collaborators. S. Woodley crop services are carrying out the industry standard sampling and analysis, as well as providing expertise on soils and the local area. While Southern water are leading the higher tier innovative technology testing alongside Cranfield University to trial novel technologies against citizen science.
We have also held a soil training workshop with a local agricultural college – hoping to inspire the next generation of farmers and land managers in the region.
What are the future plans for this project?
In the future, we are aiming to have more farmer groups working on the Soil SmARt project. We would also like to engage more with non-farmers in the area to promote better understanding of soils and their importance, and hope to focus on urban areas and private gardens/allotments.
