1. NRCS Science of Soil Health Project:
Strengthening the Science of Soil Health
SWCS – Madison, WI
July 30 – August 2, 2017
2. Michael P. Robotham (presenter)
Bianca Moebius-Clune, Director, Soil
Health Division (SHD)
David Lindbo, Director, Soil Science
Division (SSD)
Terrell Erickson, Director, Ecological
Sciences Division (ESD)
Technical staff from all Divisions
Contributors
3. Soil health is NRCS-wide
• Public education and outreach
• Incorporating soil health issues
into agency operations
• Conducting training for employees and
partners
• Developing assessment and planning
tools and procedures
• Collaboratively improving the
science behind soil health
• Science of Soil Health Project
4. Science of Soil Health Project (SSHP)
• Collaboration between Deputy Areas
and Divisions within those Deputy
Areas
• Programs (CPTAD)
• Science and Technology (SHD, ESD)
• Soil Science and Resource Assessment
(SSD)
• Project has been divided into five (5)
broad components
5. Strengthening the
Science of Soil Health
Leveraging agency wide technical capacity and infrastructure, as well as
partner resources to assess, monitor, and enhance Soil Health
Components:
1. Evaluate existing literature on indicators and their interpretation &
soil health management systems implementation
2. Leverage existing projects for data and field insights
3. Build and populate NRCS soils database with soil health data
4. Monitor soil health on representative benchmark soils and
evaluate management impact and contribute to assessment
5. Develop soil health management decision tools and citizen
science portal
Opportunities for collaboration exist in every component
7. Overall goals of field study component
• Increase our knowledge of the utility
and applicability of proposed soil
health field assessment protocols and
laboratory-based indicators
• Broaden the geographic scope of our
knowledge of the soil property
changes related to recommended
management systems changes (SHMS)
• Involve additional institutions,
organizations and individual
researchers in soil health efforts
8. Core objectives
• Compare different
management systems
on similar soils,
climates and
landscape positions
(ecological sites)
• Assess the utility and applicability of a standard set of
field and laboratory assessment protocols and soil
health indicators
• Evaluate the outcomes of management activities
(systems of conservation practices - SHMS) that
implement the four core NRCS soil health principles
9. Additional objectives
• Identify highest achievable levels for
proposed indicators
• What is the “best someone can do”?
• These will vary depending on climate, soil, etc.
• Provide systematic comparison between
field-based and laboratory-based
assessment results
• Assess consistency of laboratory results
across multiple laboratories including the
Kellogg Soil Survey Laboratory (KSSL)
10. Key project attributes
• Standard scope of work including:
• Explicit collaboration across NRCS divisions
and with partners (e.g. university, ARS) to
identify specific study sites (soils and
management systems)
• Core set of field and laboratory assessment
methods (identified by SHD-led efforts)
• Projects can add to this list to address local
issues/needs
• All data collected will be incorporated into
publicly accessible database(s)
11. Pilot project – 2017-2019
• Obtained limited internal agency initiative
funds (FY-2017) to begin pilot efforts
• 2-year collaborative agreements with
university partners
• Four (4) locations have been selected
• Agreements are being finalized at this time
• Additional sites will be added if additional
funds become available
12. Projected Timeline
• Fall 2017: Initial pilot test locations identified and
agreements developed between universities and
NRCS
• Winter 2017-18: Project-based teams meet to
identify target soils and management systems for
their location
• Spring 2018: Initial sampling with follow-up
sampling in Fall 2018 and Spring 2019
• Fall 2019: Final sampling, data analysis and initial
reporting of results.
13. For more information on the
field study project contact:
Skye Wills
Skye.Wills @ lin.usda.gov
402-437-5310
14. For more information on the
overall SSHP efforts contact:
Bianca Moebius-Clune
(bianca.moebius-clune@wdc.usda.gov)
David Lindbo
(david.lindbo@wdc.usda.gov)
Terrell Erickson
(terrell.rickson@wdc.usda.gov)
Highlight that this is an ongoing team effort that includes a large number NRCS technical staff. I’m presenting the information on behalf of the three Division Directors who are co-leads on this project. These efforts involve a long, and growing, list of people within the agency who have and continue to make valuable contributions. If I tried to list them all, I could easily use up this 15 minute time slot and would undoubtedly leave people out.
Highlight great ongoing work on all of these aspects – call out PAS and the outreach group for Unlock the secrets in the soil campaign; highlight SHD work in training and education including new course; discuss ongoing tool development and efforts to ensure that soil health concerns are appropriately addressed in NRCS planning processes and procedures (collaborative efforts). Segue into science of soil health project as one component of these agency-wide efforts that builds on what has come before
Highlight collaborative nature of these efforts – multiple pieces of NRCS working together for a common goal
Transition slide ..
Broad goals:
Better understand the utility and limitations of proposed assessment protocols and indicators
Broaden the geographic scope of our inquiries
Get more people and groups involved
Collaborative intensive long-term inventory, assessment and monitoring studies on benchmark soils and landscapes.
Comparison of different management systems on similar soils, climates and landscape positions – ties into the wider ecological site (ES) concept
Selection of benchmark soils and landscapes and associated ecological sites will this allow SH information to be linked with existing soil survey products and data and will facilitate extrapolation to other similar areas
Long-term goal is to evaluate the impacts of management activities that follow the core NRCS soil health principles:
Minimize disturbance
Increase diversity
Keep living roots
Maintain soil cover
Studies will be conducted in collaboration with partner organizations (e.g. universities, ARS, others)
On slide 8, you might want to emphasize that the similar soils/climate piece
• Compare different management systems on similar soils, climates and landscape positions (ecological sites)
You might want to make the link to soil survey more explicit (at least in the notes)
…..
All these are important questions to inform both agency internal operations but the overall knowledge of soil health and soil health assessment procedures
Highlight collaborative nature of these efforts – multiple pieces of NRCS working together for a common goal
Initial pilot sites were identified based on discussions early on in SSHP development that identified priority areas for supplemental investigation. Because of short timelines, strong state-level support as well as cooperator willingness and ability to move forward very quickly were also required. These are pilot efforts and we hope to expand to additional sites as additional funding becomes available and as additional information on priority knowledge gaps is gained from ongoing literature reviews and meta-analyses both within and outside NRCS. We are also happy to provide the scope of work and minimum data sets field and laboratory indicators; meta-data requirements) to others working in this area as examples that they may want to follow or that they can adapt for their own use.
Timeline is flexible to account for local conditions – ample planning time is explicitly included – we want to spend the time up front to make sure that the selected study sites and sampling design best meet both the national and local needs of the project
Dr. Skye Wills, soil scientist at the National Soil Survey Center is the technical lead for the field study sites component of the SSHP – her contact information is provided here.
Any of the three Division Directors would be happy to provide additional information on the overall scope and objectives of the overall project