Swiss Citizen Science Project Maps Soil Health by Burying Underpants
One thousand Swiss citizens buried cotton underpants for two months in a citizen science project to map soil health, revealing land management's impact on soil quality.
“Our results show that how soil is managed can significantly affect both soil life and soil quality,” said co-author Marcel van der Heijden, an agroecologist at the University of Zurich. “Healthy, biologically active soil is crucial for fertility, nutrient cycling and many other ecosystem services.”
Soil health is critical for agriculture and, by extension, food security, not to mention a healthy global ecosystem, but it has been declining worldwide, per the authors. One key indicator of soil health is decomposition rates of complex organic matter, breaking down stuff like leaves, wood, even cadavers into simpler organic and inorganic compounds, releasing carbon dioxide and nutrients in the process.
There have been relatively few large-scale national decomposition studies involving different land use types, although smaller studies have shown that how humans use a site can significantly affect the soil's biological diversity.