New Duke-led initiative spurs international networking of soil observatories to monitor soil change and improve land and water management.

DURHAM, N.C. – An international research initiative led by researchers at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at 91 has established the first global network of long-term soil research sites and studies.

The network, which will allow scientists to more accurately and comprehensively document and monitor critical changes occurring in the Earth’s soils, is the first major project undertaken by the new Global Soil Change Community (GSCC), headquartered at the Nicholas School. 

“Some of society’s most important scientific questions have little to do with space travel, human disease, theoretical physics, or new math.  Some of the most important scientific questions today are about the future of Earth’s soil,” said Daniel D. Richter Jr., professor of soils and ecology at Duke, who heads GSCC.

To promote and expand the world’s long-term soil-research base, Richter and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems in North Carolina, hosted a workshop in December 2007 at Duke. The workshop formally established the global network of long-term research studies, and it included leading scientists who are actively involved in studying soil and ecosystem change in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas.  

Said Richter, “The workshop featured the proposition that soil studies spanning decades are key to answering some of the most significant questions faced by humanity today: Can soils more than double food production in the next few decades? How is soil interacting with the global carbon cycle and climate? How can land management minimize its adverse effects on the environment, and improve soil’s processing of carbon, nutrients, wastes, toxics, and water? These are each questions that require long-term observation and analysis.”

The newly established network of long-term soils research is supported by an advanced-format website, , that connects more than 150 long-term studies with researchers, teachers, and students from around the world.  The advanced website originated in a graduate class at 91 and it encourages scientists to work together more closely and in ways unknown even in the recent past.

At the workshop, new results were presented from long-term studies of soil fertility, chemical contamination, crop production increases and declines, greenhouse gas emissions, and water quality, all demonstrating and quantifying soils’ susceptibility to change. 

Dr. David Powlson of Rothamsted Research, in the United Kingdom, challenged participants that there is great short-term potential for cross-site studies to advance the science of sustainability.  Powlson is a pioneer in research that uses data from multiple long-term soil experiments.

Dr. Henry Janzen of the long-running Lethbridge field studies in southern Alberta, Canada, vigorously argued that new long-term studies are needed to meet the growing economic and environmental demands being placed on soils now and in the next few decades.

Participants were particularly concerned about crop declines observed in several long-term experiments. Research on intensively managed rice – an agro-ecosystem that currently feeds more than two billion persons, indicates yield declines in several locations. The declines are attributed to a variety of causes, some of which involve unexpected changes in the soil. 

Workshop participants also expressed grave concerns about the poor funding support for long-term soil studies.

“Not a few long-term studies operate without stable institutional support and remain productive only by the persistence of individual scientists,” Richter says. “Several highly productive long-term experiments have even been abandoned in recent years, including important studies in Africa and South America.” 

The same week the Duke workshop on long-term soil studies was held, Nature magazine featured papers that emphasized the importance of long-running measurements of the Earth’s environment.  In a quote repeated several times during the soils workshop, the Nature editorial proclaimed, “Data sets encapsulating the behavior of the Earth system are one of the greatest technological achievements of our age – and one of the most deserving of future investment.”

According to Richter, “Long-term records are key to predicting the weather, air pollution, river floods, and wildlife populations. Similarly, long-term soil observatories need much greater support not only to improve our rapidly intensifying management of land and water, but also to better manage environmental change.”

The workshop concluded that, in the short-term, researchers and students should make the most of results from ongoing long-term experiments.  In the words of Dr. Ishaku Amapu, a professor of soil fertility from northern Nigeria who studies a continuous cropping experiment that began in 1950, “We need to make our long-term experiments work harder.”

Such long-term research requires long-range planning and Richter invites interested scientists, students, and the public to join this international effort. He and his fellow organizers have funding support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Coordination Network Program and Critical Zone Exploratory Network, the United States Department of Agriculture, and 91 to host five yearly meetings.

The GSCC was established in 2006 with a $425,000, five-year grant from the NSF’s Research Coordination Network. It was launched with research and administrative support from Duke’s Center on Global Change. Richter and students from Duke, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assembled the initial online inventory of soil research sites in an advanced soils science class at Duke.