Novel proximal sensing for monitoring soil organic C stocks and condition
Open accessAbstract
Soil information is needed for environmental monitoring to address current concerns over food, water and energy securities, land degradation, and climate change. We developed the Soil Condition ANalysis System (SCANS) to help address these needs. It integrates an automated soil core sensing system (CSS) with statistical analytics and modeling to characterize soil at fine depth resolutions and across landscapes. The CSS's sensors include a γ-ray attenuation densitometer to measure bulk density, digital cameras to image the measured soil, and a visible-near-infrared (vis-NIR) spectrometer to measure iron oxides and clay mineralogy. The spectra are also modeled to estimate total soil organic carbon (C), particulate, humus, and resistant organic C (POC, HOC, and ROC, respectively), clay content, cation exchange capacity (CEC), pH, volumetric water content, available water capacity (AWC), and their uncertainties. Measurements of bulk density and organic C are combined to estimate C stocks. Kalman smoothing is used to derive complete soil property profiles with propagated uncertainties. The SCANS provides rapid, precise, quantitative, and spatially explicit information about the properties of soil profiles with a level of detail that is difficult to obtain with other approaches. The information gained effectively deepens our understanding of soil and calls attention to the central role soil plays in our environment.
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Some novel soil quality techniques may be developed into high-throughput soil analysis to shed light on spatial and temporal variability of soil parameters and determine soil quality across different scales for application in precision agriculture, monitoring programs and life cycle assessments.
“some of the techniques may be developed into high-throughput soil analysis to shed light on the spatial and temporal variability of soil parameters and determine soil quality across di ff erent scales for application in precision agriculture, monitoring programs and life cycle assessments (Ge et al., 2011; Viscarra Rossel et al., 2017).”
From Soil quality – A critical review (2018) · cites this paper as Viscarra Rossel et al., 2017
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Soil quality – A critical review
Bünemann, E. K., Bongiorno, G., Bai, Z., Creamer, R. E., De Deyn, G., de Goede, R., Fleskens, L., Geissen, V., Kuyper, T. W., Mäder, P., et al. (2018) · Soil Biology and Biochemistry · doi:10.1016/j.soilbio.2018.01.030 · Cited by 2,960 · see citing works
- Authors
- Viscarra Rossel, R. A., Lobsey, C. R., Sharman, C., Flick, P., & McLachlan, G.
- Affiliations
- CSIRO Land and Water , P.O. BOX 1700, ,
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU)
- Venue
- Environmental Science & Technology
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2017-04-17
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 5630-5641
- ISSN
- 0013-936X (ISSN-L)
- 1520-5851
- OpenAlex
- W2606654781
- Cited by
- 116
- References
- 50
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 5.99
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Environmental Science & Technology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- University of Southern Queensland ePrints (University of Southern Queensland) (acceptedVersion)
- eSpace (Curtin University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (1194194-91)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Soil Geostatistics and Mapping
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Ocean Engineering › Geophysical Methods and Applications
- Keywords
- soil organic carbon, soil carbon stocks, soil condition monitoring, bulk density, visible and near-infrared spectroscopy, iron oxide, clay mineralogy, particulate organic carbon, cation exchange capacity, soil pH, available water capacity, volumetric water content, Kalman smoother, error propagation, SCAN
- MeSH terms
- Carbon, Environment, Environmental Monitoring, Soil, Climate Change
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