Evaluating ecosystems role in increasing soil carbon and soil resilience

Soil health is defined as the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals and humans. Farming systems that maintain or build soil organic carbon generally improve soil health, resilience and productivity. However, there is no accepted method for describing soil biological resilience. This project will build on the Soil CRC project Evaluating soil functional resilience by adopting the methodologies developed to measure soil organic carbon pools and resilience against various stressors.

It aims to understand the relationship between ecosystem-based management practices (e.g. cover cropping; regenerative agricultural management) and improvement of soil organic carbon and resilience using Soil CRC field trials and paired sites. This project will quantitatively describe soil functional resilience and understand which farming practices and soil organic carbon pools contribute to this resilience.

It is expected to deliver recommendations and decision support tools for Soil CRC farmer groups to measure their soil carbon stocks and resilience and determine when their applied management practices will deliver positive outcomes.