Underestimating soil health when tracking the progress of nature restoration projects could lead to unreliable or incomplete assessments, a biodiversity expert with infrastructure consultants AECOM has said.
Efforts in soil monitoring need to scale, said AECOM’s nature-based solutions and biodiversity specialist in Asia, Ash Welch speaking on a webinar about challenges surrounding nature in infrastructure advisory.
“There are biases around what we subconsciously want to measure, and most of those biases are from what we can visually see above ground. We need to start thinking about soil a little more widely, especially when we’re trying to target nature recovery,” Welch said.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), soil is home to more than 25% of the world’s biodiversity, including plants and microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, and algae. Yet, our knowledge is still limited.
“[Soil] is an important component in nature restoration in particular. If you’re trying to restore a forest on degraded ground or land, you really do need to think about soil, because that will dictate, to some extent, what you’ll be able to create in the future,” Welch said.
“You might be predicting that a forest will grow within 20 to 30 years, but if it is highly degraded, then it might take longer. The fungal networks and soil biota communities really facilitate and help plants grow. And you can measure this in a number of different ways.”
EDNA UPTAKE
Notably, environmental DNA (eDNA) has proven highly effective in analysing DNA samples from the environment, allowing for the detection of a wide range of organisms without direct observation or disturbance.
Predominantly used for regulatory reporting in the past, the practice is being increasingly promoted as a non-invasive way to measure biodiversity uplifts from projects and other activities, including in the context of the emerging biodiversity credit market.
“eDNA is a fantastic way to look at ratios between bacteria and fungi … you can look at species richness and abundance, and pick out certain indicator species that tell something about that soil,” Welch said.
“If you did that on an annual basis while you’re going through your forest restoration, you could track that over time and then start to build up a picture of how it’s changing as the forest grows.”
In the past few years, several tech and intelligence firms have developed methods for monitoring soil through genetic tracking.
Last October, UK-based tech company NatureMetrics launched a first of its kind cloud-based platform powered by eDNA for corporate nature disclosures.
In March, global conglomerate Unilever partnered with NatureMetrics to harness eDNA technologies to drive regenerative farming practices across its supply chain.
By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com
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