Due to the increased need for food and water globally, understanding soil health is more important than ever. Soil health is necessary to sustain crop productivity and for the establishment of soil ecosystem services that serve many functions crucial to agricultural and environmental production. The project team is creating a Soil Health and Soil Ecosystem Services data platform where shareable and archivable files will be made available for current and future use. The integration of data will be accomplished through data mining and machine learning procedures that will be contributing to the creation of this database.

What is the challenge?

There is not a dedicated data platform for sharing research findings on soil health. Accessibility of research by industry experts can help in crop sustainability and lead to a better understanding of soil health in a changing climate environment.

Addressing the problem:

The goal of this project is to create a Soil Health and Soil Ecosystem Services data platform where shareable and archivable files will be made available for current and future use of the data by a multitude of users. Data integration will be accomplished through data mining and machine-learning procedures.

Project Impact:

Integration of research into this platform will maximize the scientific output of previous studies and contribute to soil ecosystem service analysis.

Key message for decision makers:

The accessible database will lead to novel analysis on the factors that enhance soil health and control soil ecosystem services in agro-ecosystems and further establish the University of Guelph as a hub for agri-environmental research.

Partners:

Dr. Kari Dunfield (Co-Investigator), Dr. Aaron Berg (Co-Investigator), Dr. Jon Warland (Co-Investigator), Dr. Myrna Simpson (Co-Investigator), Dr. Kate Congreves (Co-Investigator), Dr. Hugh Henry (Co-Investigator)

For more information on this research project, please visit https://claudiawagnerriddle.uoguelph.ca/