Just how healthy is Alberta's soil? A new database aims to find out
CBC
CBC Alberta and Saskatchewan have teamed up for a new pilot series on weather and climate change on the Prairies. Meteorologist Christy Climenhaga will bring her expert voice to the conversation to help explain weather phenomena and climate change and how it impacts everyday life.
The first step in mitigating climate change is understanding where we are in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
In an area as vast as the Prairies, a big piece of the puzzle is how rural regions contribute to our emissions and storage balance — and where is there room for growth.
That big question is one Derek MacKenzie hopes to answer with a new soil database research project
"There's a huge potential for soils to store more carbon and there's huge potential for alternate agricultural practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," says MacKenzie, an associate professor of soil science at the University of Alberta.
He is leading a two-year initiative studying the health of Alberta's soil.
"There's a huge potential for agriculture to mitigate climate change and be part of the solution of climate change."
MacKenzie says this database project started with an archived collection of samples from the Government of Alberta.
Between 1997 and 2007, soil samples were collected at 42 sites across Alberta and tested for things like salinity, fertility and total organic matter content.
MacKenzie says that using those samples and resampling those sites with current techniques will allow researchers to study the genetic makeup of the soil and ability for soils to store carbon in the long term.
"That means adding things like microbial genomic diversity in soils … small insects and soil diversity and carbon stability in soils."
Soil health can be complicated, going beyond just getting enough sun and water. According to MacKenzie, it comes down to sustainable soil function and depends on what your goals are for the soil.
In his opinion, the soil functions for agriculture should include crop productivity as well as carbon sequestration, microbial diversity and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
"Soils have the potential to store massive amounts of carbon. And looking at just total carbon doesn't tell you the full story. It doesn't tell you how easy that carbon is to decompose or not to decompose," MacKenzie says.
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