Introducing the Open Soil Spectral Library
On this World Soils Day, the Soil Spectroscopy for the Global Good Coordinated Innovation Network, founded by Woodwell Climate, Opengeohub Foundation and University of Florida, announced the release of the Open Soil Spectral Library (OSSL).
Soil Spectroscopy Made Universally Accessible
The need for high-quality soil data has grown exponentially to support natural resource assessments, sustainable food production, and climate mitigation goals. Soil scientists have been struggling to meet this demand because measurement of soil still largely relies on shovels and benchtop analytical methods.
Reflectance spectroscopy, the measurement of light absorption at different wavelengths, has emerged as an important, rapid, and low-cost complement to traditional wet chemical analyses. However, a bottleneck to more widespread adoption of soil spectroscopy is the need for large reference training datasets and complex data analyses. To bridge this gap and enable hundreds of research soil and agronomy groups to collect more affordable soil data, Soil Spectroscopy for the Greater Good has created an open source and open data project.
The OSSL consists of multiple interrelated components. The first is a large database consisting of several continental and national collections of spectral data in both the visible-near infrared (VNIR) and mid infrared (MIR) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as traditionally measured soil properties. These data can be accessed and visualized through the OSSL Explorer or directly worked with through an API or by downloading a snapshot of the entire database.
The second main component is the OSSL Engine, where users can upload spectra collected on their own instruments to estimate a set of soil properties using an ensemble of machine learning models.
Open and FAIR science is the heart of the OSSL. All compiled data and software is available here (under MIT license) and a versioned back-up copy of the data is also available via Zenodo (under CC-BY license), to allow users to extend, build upon, and even construct commercial businesses on top of the data and code.
Soil Spectroscopy for the Global Good is a Coordinated Innovation Network that brings together soil scientists, spectroscopists, informaticians, data scientists and software engineers to overcome some of the current bottlenecks preventing wider and more efficient use of soil spectroscopy. Datasets have been contributed by the USDA NRCS National Soil Survey Center – Kellogg Soil Survey Laboratory, ICRAF-World Agroforestry, ISRIC-World Soil Information, the Africa Soil Information Service funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the European Soil Data Centre, the National Ecological Observatory Network, and ETH Zurich.
Both the OSSL Explorer and OSSL Engine are currently still beta models and the project is accepting feedback for improvements here. Please contribute to this project and help us make better tools for measuring and monitoring our soils and land.
The feasibility of land-based carbon mitigation in 4 graphics
The importance of natural climate solutions came to the forefront of climate talks in Glasgow last week as decision makers discussed the “how” of making good on emissions pledges.
One of the most powerful existing solutions we can deploy are land-based mitigation strategies, also known as natural climate solutions. Forest protection and restoration, agroforestry, and other changes to the way we manage land can boost the amount of carbon ecosystems pull from the atmosphere and could help tackle 20-30 percent of the emissions reductions needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C. These graphics, based on a recent study in Global Change Biology, break down the potential and feasibility of land-based carbon mitigation.
Cost-effective mitigation is only 40% of the total technical potential
Although there is great potential in land-based mitigation globally, some actions will be cheaper and easier to implement. Roughly 40 percent of the total carbon mitigation potential of land-based strategies can be considered cost-effective, with estimated price tags up to $100 per ton of carbon sequestered. On a global scale, actions like reducing deforestation or improving carbon sequestration on grasslands are incredibly cost effective. Shifting to healthier, more plant-based diets is another, individual, action that can have big impacts.
Agricultural mitigation is as important as forest protection in the Northern Hemisphere
On a regional level, the value of different actions varies. In Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Africa, the greatest mitigation power lies in forests, both protecting existing forests and restoring degraded ones. In Brazil, which holds 60 percent of Amazon forests, the feasible benefits are striking. For developed nations, like the United States, improving sequestration on agricultural lands is a much larger piece of the equation, almost equal to forest-related measures. This is because developed countries like the U.S. have already cut their old-growth forests.
Some small but carbon-rich ecosystems are “too dense to fell”
Ecosystems like mangroves or peatlands offer opportunities to make big emissions reductions over relatively small areas. Mangrove forests store vastly more carbon per hectare than most terrestrial forests—primarily due to large soil carbon stores—and only occupy thin strips of coastline across much of the tropics.
Their outsize carbon sequestration and storage potential means that restoring them offers a much greater return on investment than other ecosystems, and failing to protect them could place climate goals in serious jeopardy. Though employing all land-based mitigation strategies at our disposal is crucial, targeting the most carbon-rich forests could be a quicker, easier, more cost-effective first step.
Success or failure? Woodwell scientists deem COP26 a mixed bag
Glasgow Climate Pact alone is not enough to limit warming to 1.5 C, but COP26 made real progress
For the first two weeks of November, diplomats and scientists from around the world descended on Glasgow, Scotland for the United Nations’ 26th annual Conference of Parties—hailed by some as the “last, best, hope” for successful international cooperation on the issue of climate change. Woodwell sent three expert teams to push for more ambitious policies that integrate our understanding of permafrost thaw and socioeconomic risks, and for financial mechanisms to scale natural climate solutions. Here are their thoughts on the successes and failures of this pivotal meeting.
Bold pledges but uncertain follow-through for tropical forests
The conference started off with a bold promise from 100 nations to end deforestation by 2030, accompanied by a pledge of more than $19 billion from both governments and the private sector. Though similar pledges to end deforestation have failed in the past, the funding pledged alongside this one gives reason to be hopeful.
$1.7 billion of the funds are allocated specifically to support Indigenous communities, which Woodwell Assistant Scientist Dr. Glenn Bush believes is a big step forward, though creating policies that are equally supportive will be where the real work gets done.
“It’s particularly welcome that Indigenous peoples are finally being acknowledged as key protectors of forests. The real challenge, however, is how to deliver interlocking policies and actions that really do drive down deforestation globally and scale up nature-based solutions to climate change.”
Dr. Ane Alencar, Director of Science at IPAM Amazônia, said that, for Brazil, half of the solution could come from enforcing existing laws and designating public forests. The other half could come from consolidating protected areas, creating incentives for private land conservation, and providing technical support for sustainable food production.
Dr. Bush also presented the CONSERV project, a joint initiative between IPAM and Woodwell that provides compensation for farmers who preserve forests on their land, above and beyond their legal conservation requirements. Increasing the scale and financing of viable carbon market plans like CONSERV could be crucial in incentivizing greater forest protection.
Climate risk a growing focus for governments
During the second week of the conference, Woodwell released a summary report on a series of climate risk workshops with policymakers and climate risk experts from 13 G20 nations. These workshops, conducted in collaboration with the COP26 Presidency and the British government’s Science and Innovation Network, identified challenges to incorporating climate risk assessments into national-level policy, and the report made recommendations for moving from simply making the science available to making it useful for implementation. The report demonstrated a desire from policymakers to get involved in climate risk analyses early in the process, to ensure the information addresses a country’s particular needs.
One success of the conference was the creation of a new climate risk coalition, led by Woodwell. The coalition, composed of 9 other organizations, will produce an annual climate risk assessment for policymakers.
“Understanding the full picture of climate risk is incredibly important when you’re setting policy,” explained Woodwell’s Chief of External Affairs, Dave McGlinchey. “We also heard, however, that the climate risk assessments need to be designed with the policymakers who will eventually use them. This research must speak directly to their interests if it is going to be delivered effectively.”
The increased desire of policymakers to better understand and address oncoming climate risks demonstrates an important shift to viewing climate change as a present problem, rather than solely a future one.
Permafrost thaw presents the greatest remaining uncertainty in forecasting emissions
One risk that still isn’t high enough on the COP agenda is rapid Arctic change, particularly permafrost thaw. The Cryosphere Pavilion, hosted by the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, convened conversations ranging from the implications of permafrost thaw, to environmental justice for Northern Communities and respecting Indigenous knowledge and culture. For Arctic Program Director, Dr. Sue Natali, the Indigenous-led panels were some of the most impactful of the conference. But postdoctoral researcher Dr. Rachael Treharne noted that, no matter how well attended, there’s a difference between being in the Cryosphere Pavilion and being on the main stage.
Woodwell was among a group of organizations pushing to get permafrost emissions the attention it demands. Emissions released by thawing permafrost are currently not accounted for in national commitments, but are potentially equivalent to top emitting countries like the U.S. November 4 at the conference was “Permafrost Day” and each event was at full capacity for the pavilion, signaling growing attention to permafrost science. Woodwell, alongside a dozen polar and mountain interest groups called for even more commitment to the cryosphere conversation at the upcoming Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice U.N. climate conference in Bonn scheduled for June of 2022.
Even with this greater recognition of the seriousness of Arctic climate change, the region and its people are being hit much harder and faster than the rest of the globe. Slow-moving decision-making and talk without follow-through will seriously endanger Arctic residents.
“I left the COP having a very hard time feeling ‘optimistic’, while knowing that the hazards of climate change are already severely impacting Arctic lands, cultural resources, food and water security, infrastructure, homes, and ways of living,” said Dr. Natali. “After repeated years of record-breaking Arctic wildfires, heatwaves, and ice loss, I’m not sure how a 1.5 or 2C warmer world—one in which we know that these events will only get worse—is a reasonable goal.”
Though missing necessary milestones at COP26, climate action is accelerating
Overall, however, the final Glasgow Climate Pact fell short of the ambitious action the world needs in order to limit warming. The deal made several last-minute compromises surrounding the phase out of fossil fuels. COP president Alok Sharma said that, while a future with only 1.5 degrees of warming is possible, it is fragile—dependent on countries keeping to their promises.
Despite this, McGlinchey says there was real progress at COP26. The conference reached a resolution that earned the unanimous agreement of all attending parties. The formal process has also begun to accelerate, with nations required to return with more ambitious climate mitigation plans next year, rather than on the previous five year timeline.
“We are not yet where we need to be,” McGlinchey said. “But we are better off than where we were two weeks ago. Let’s keep going.”
Arctic Program Director Dr. Sue Natali testifies on Arctic security
Dr. Natali speaks to House representatives about national security threats caused by a warming Arctic
The U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee heard testimony on November 16 on the national security implications of climate change in the Arctic. Woodwell Arctic Program Director, Dr. Sue Natali, presented research demonstrating the threats posed by rapid warming and thawing permafrost. Read her written statement.
Though globally, temperatures have risen 1.1 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, the Arctic is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the planet. As the region warms, melting sea ice and emissions released by thawing permafrost accelerate temperature increases and set up self-perpetuating feedback loops.
Dr. Natali emphasized the particular security threat from permafrost thaw. These frozen soils store vast amounts of ancient carbon. As they thaw, the carbon is broken down and released in a process that cannot be undone.
“The loss of permafrost carbon is irreversible on a human-relevant timeframe,” Dr. Natali said. “When accounting for the full scope of thaw processes, cumulative permafrost carbon emissions by the end of this century could be on par with continued emissions from a country like Japan or as high as continued emissions from the United States.”
Warmer ground also brings with it a host of additional risks. The frequency of Arctic fires increases with the temperature, and can burn deep into the soil and last through the winter if the ground does not re-freeze. Arctic communities are also at risk from land subsidence—the slumping of frozen ground as the rigid structure of the ice begins to melt—as well as loss of food and water security and the endangerment of traditional culture.
Several Alaskan villages are now seeking relocation as the stability of their lands begins to crumble. In her testimony, Dr. Natali pushed for the government to provide greater support for these communities, and to prepare itself as more and more Arctic residents feel the full impacts of warming.
“Domestically, we need to act now to ensure that communities in Alaska and federal agencies are prepared for these impacts and put into place aggressive mitigation policies to prevent further avoidable climate warming,” Dr. Natali said.
Climate change is pushing Brazil’s farmland out of agricultural suitability range
A new study, published this week in Nature Climate Change, finds that warmer and drier climatic conditions in Brazil are changing the agricultural productivity of one of the world’s largest bread baskets.
Central Brazil leads the world in production of key staple crops including soybeans and corn, but those crops depend on a stable climate. Deforestation to expand such agricultural production is a counterproductive strategy, as it not only accelerates global warming, but also causes changes to the regional climate that can drastically impact crop yields.
The study, led by Dr. Ludmila Rattis, Assistant Scientist at Woodwell Climate, modeled changes to precipitation and temperature along Brazil’s Cerrado-Amazon frontier—a region responsible for half of the country’s agricultural output. The results show that already 28% of agricultural lands are no longer in an optimal climatic range, and that percentage will shoot up to 74% by 2060 as the region gets hotter and drier. The Cerrado in particular, Dr. Rattis says, will feel the effects of reduced agricultural productivity.
90% of Brazil’s agriculture is rainfed, which makes droughts, heatwaves, and other climatic interruptions a major economic risk. When the temperature gets warmer, plants grow faster, which releases more water vapor into the air from their leaves as a byproduct of photosynthesis. But if there isn’t a steady supply of soil moisture available to replace water lost through transpiration, productivity declines.
That difference in moisture is called the vapor pressure deficit (VPD) is a way of determining how thirsty the air is in a region. Dr. Rattis’s study found that over the past two decades, agricultural land has been expanding into areas of higher VPD.
With cropland pushing into less-than-optimal land, and deforestation exacerbating drought, agricultural intensification practices are becoming less feasible on existing cleared land. Practices like double-cropping corn and soy in one season are common, but require farmers to take advantage of the full length of the rainy season. With climate change, however, rainy seasons are starting later and dry seasons are more intense, requiring a lot more moisture to make up the deficit when the rains do come. If farmers can no longer plant two crops in one season, the pressure to deforest additional land to make up for lost profits will increase.
“If you don’t have the time you invest in more space,” says Dr. Rattis.
Irrigation isn’t necessarily a sustainable solution when roughly 70% of Brazil’s electricity comes from hydroelectric power, and the country’s rivers and groundwater supply depend on maintaining existing hydrology.
Professor Paulo Brando, an ecosystem scientist at the University of California, Irvine and co-author on the paper, describes how Brazil’s agricultural status quo is untenable.
“The current production system in the region may be reaching its full climatic potential,” Brando says. “Not part of this study, but it is clear from a growing body of research that a change in food habits and a reduction in food waste could help alleviate some of the pressure.”
According to Dr. Rattis, the key to successfully adapting Brazilian agriculture to a warmer climate lies in restoring and preserving native vegetation on the landscape—reducing the pressure on farmers to deforest and finding ways for forests and agriculture to share the land.
“Forests act like air conditioners for your crops. Farmers need to understand that deforesting in the face of climate change is like getting rid of your air conditioners before an upcoming heatwave,” Rattis says.
Mountain and polar groups seek urgent COP26 decision
As climate talks in Glasgow head into their second week, Woodwell Climate Research Center joins mountain and polar groups at COP26 calling for more consideration of the dire global impacts that will result from the loss of glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost should governments not take greater action.
These research, environmental, and Indigenous organizations span the global “cryosphere” (snow and ice regions), from the poles to the high mountain Asia “Third Pole.” They believe that the poor understanding by governments of the real implications of the cryosphere poses a dangerous issue for climate goals. As a matter of urgency, the groups are asking COP26 to approve a decision point mandating the UNFCCC to arrange a day-long meeting, or “Cryosphere Dialogue,” at the next inter-sessional climate conference, scheduled to take place in Bonn in June 2022.
“For too long, our planet’s frozen elements have been absent from the climate debate at the UNFCCC, even though their crucial role in determining the future for more than a billion people and our climate is becoming ever more clear,” said Dr. Martin Sommerkorn, IPCC SROCC author, of the WWF Arctic Programme. “The UNFCCC must urgently create space for Parties and stakeholders to discuss actions to be taken in response to this cryosphere crisis.”
The groups note that despite the dire consequences noted in the IPCC’s August report there has never been a full discussion of the irreversibility of projected changes in the cryosphere at climate talks. In contrast, the UNFCCC has held Dialogues on oceans and lands.
Dr. Rachael Treharne from Woodwell Climate Research Center explained, “Thawing Arctic permafrost makes carbon that has been locked in the deep freeze for millennia vulnerable to release into the atmosphere. It’s critical that international mitigation policies address this catastrophic regional and global hazard.”
“Negotiators may think they know about melting ice caps, but what they don’t realize is that the impacts are essentially permanent on human timescales, and catastrophic for humanity,” noted Dr. Robert DeConto, a leading researcher with one of the groups, the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR). “Once the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet begins, it will be effectively impossible to halt,” agrees Jonathan Bamber, Director of the Bristol Glaciology Centre and a multiple IPCC author.
Pam Pearson, Director of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, which is hosting a Cryosphere Pavilion at the conference, said. “The questions by governments during discussion of the latest IPCC report last week underscore that this issue needs more than a 15-minute presentation.”
“The polar regions are no longer an early warming signal for climate change,” concludes Professor Dame Jane Francis, Director of the British Antarctic Survey. “Instead, they are now a driver of climate change and this reality needs to be better understood.”
The other organizations and institutions include the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), Grantham Institute at Imperial College, Bolin Centre at Stockholm University, and the National Snow and Ice Data Center at University of Colorado Boulder.
Black spruce are losing their legacy to fire
Although evolved to thrive in fire-disturbed environments, a recent study shows more frequent fires are threatening black spruce resilience
For the past five to ten thousand years, black spruce have been as constant on the boreal landscape as the mountains themselves. But that constancy is changing as the climate warms.
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, led by Dr. Jennifer Baltzer, Canada Research Chair in Forests and Global Change at Wilfrid Laurier University, found that shifts in wildfire regimes are pushing black spruce forests to a tipping point, beyond which the iconic species may lose its place of dominance in boreal North America.
Synthesizing data from over 1500 fire-disturbed sites, the study showed black spruce’s ability to regenerate after fire dropped at 38% of sites and failed completely 18% of the time—numbers never before seen in a species evolved to thrive after fire.
The Stabilizing Feedback of Black Spruce
“They almost look like a Dr. Seuss tree.” says Dr. Brendan Rogers, an Associate Scientist at Woodwell and co-author on the PNAS study. He’s referring to the way black spruce are shaped—short branches that droop out of spindly trunks. Clusters of small dark purple cones cling to the very tops of the trees. Black spruce forests tend to be cool and shaded by the dense branches, and the forest floor is soft and springy.
“The experience of walking through these forests is very different from what most people are accustomed to. The forest floor is spongy, like a pillow or waterbed,” Dr. Rogers says. “It’s often very damp, too, because black spruce forests facilitate the growth of moss and lichen that retain moisture.”
However, these ground covers can also dry out quickly. Spruce have evolved alongside that moss and lichen to create a fire-prone environment. It only takes a few days or even hours of hot and dry weather for the porous mosses to lose their moisture, and the spruce are full of flammable branches and resin that fuel flames up into the tree’s crown.
Black spruce need these fires to regenerate. Their cones open up in the heat and drop seeds onto the charred organic soil, which favors black spruce seedlings over other species. The organic soil layers built up by the moss are thick enough to present a challenge for most seedlings trying to put down roots, but black spruce seeds are uniquely designed to succeed.
Dr. Jill Johnstone, Affiliate Research Scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who also contributed to the PNAS study, compares it to a lottery system that black spruce have rigged for millennia.
“After fire, anything can happen,” says Johnstone. “But one way to make sure you win the lottery is to buy a lot of tickets. Black spruce has the most tickets. It has the most number of seeds that are the right size to get roots down into mineral soil, and so it tends to regenerate after fire.”
Potential competitors like white spruce, Dr. Johnstone says, don’t disperse very far from standing trees so they only get a few lottery tickets. Deciduous species like aspen or birch have seeds that are too small to work through the thick organic layers—their tickets are faulty. So the fire lottery tends to perpetuate black spruce’s dominance in what’s known as a “stabilizing feedback loop”.
Hotter, Dryer Conditions are Inhibiting Black Spruce Regeneration
That stable loop has begun to break down, however. Black spruce just aren’t re-establishing themselves as frequently after fire. The study examined the characteristics of different sites to better understand what might be hampering regeneration success.
Sites that failed to regenerate with black spruce were typically drier than normal. They also tended to have shorter intervals between successive fires. Black spruce stands have historically experienced the kinds of intense, stand-replacing fires that burn through everything only once per century. This long interval allows the trees to build up a healthy bank of cones to release seeds the next time they burn. More frequent, returning fires short-circuit the regeneration process.
Increased burning also strips away more of that thick organic soil layer that favors black spruce, revealing mineral soils underneath that level the playing field for other tree species. The more completely combusted those organic layers are, the more likely spruce are to have competition from jack pine, aspen, or birch. Loss of black spruce resilience was more common in Western North America, which aligns with the fact that drier sites are more likely to lose their black spruce.
“Basically, the drier the system is, the more vulnerable it is to fire,” Dr. Baltzer says. “And these are the parts of the landscape that are also more likely to change in terms of forest composition, or shift to a non-forested state after fire. If climate change is pushing these systems to an ever drier state, these tipping points are more likely to be reached.”
For Dr. Rogers, it also highlights the real possibility of losing black spruce across much of boreal North America as the region warms.
“This is evidence that black spruce is losing its dominant grip on boreal North America,” Rogers says. “It’s happening now and it’s probably going to get worse.”
Losing Black Spruce Could Accelerate Permafrost Thaw
Landscape-wide ecological shifts from black spruce to other species will have complicated, rippling impacts on the region.
Of most concern is the impact on permafrost. In many parts of the boreal, those mossy soil layers that promote black spruce also insulate permafrost, which stores large amounts of ancient carbon. Replacing the dark, shaded understory of a black spruce forest with a more open deciduous habitat that lacks mossy insulation could accelerate thaw. Thawing permafrost and associated emissions would accelerate a warming feedback loop that could push black spruce to its tipping point.
Widespread loss of black spruce also has implications for biodiversity, particularly caribou species that overwinter in the forest and feed on lichen. Both barren-ground and boreal caribou, important cultural species for northern communities, are already in decline across the continent and would suffer more losses if the ecosystem shifts away from the black spruce-lichen forests that provide food and refuge.
Dr. Johnstone did point out some potential for black spruce to recover, even if initial regeneration post-fire is dominated by other species. Slower growing, but longer lived, conifers can often grow in the shade of pioneer deciduous species and take over when they begin to die off—but this requires longer intervals between fires for the spruce to reach maturity. There is also the possibility that more deciduous trees, which are naturally less flammable than conifers, could help plateau increasing fires on the landscape.
But both these hopes, Dr. Baltzer says, are dependent on getting warming into check, because deciduous or conifer, “if it’s hot enough, and the fuel is dry enough, it will burn.”
Giving carbon a home on the range
Adapting ranching practices in the US could increase carbon sequestered in the American West
Rangelands occupy more than three quarters of global agricultural land. Many of the world’s native grassland ecosystems have been converted to grazing land for livestock, altering their ecology and changing the flow of carbon on the landscape. However, these lands still have the potential to be a powerful carbon sink if properly managed.
On September 27 and 28, Woodwell Climate Research Center convened a workshop in collaboration with Montana State University (MSU) and Turner Ranches to open discussions on rangeland management in the United States. The workshop took place in Bozeman, Montana, and brought together scientists, ranchers, and conservationists to share their perspectives on rangeland ecology, carbon sequestration, fire management, and herd health, as well as anecdotes from careers spent on the range.
“Montana offers a great location for this conversation because the majority of the state is amazing rangeland including unique grassland and sagebrush steppe environments, in many cases privately held,” said Dr. Stephanie Ewing, an Associate Professor at MSU who co-organized the event. “And because we have a strong academic and extension community at MSU that has been engaged with rangelands and rangeland managers over time.”
Day one began with a series of presentations and panels meant to facilitate discussion about rangeland management. Sessions covered rangeland ecosystem services, rangelands in the American West, management for carbon sequestration, carbon markets, and tools for rangeland monitoring.
For Dr. Jennifer Watts, Woodwell Assistant Scientist, the discussions highlighted the vast untapped potential of rangelands to play a positive part in climate mitigation.
“There’s so much rangeland in the western U.S. and so there is a huge potential for improving ecosystems and improving carbon sequestration and storage,” Dr. Watts said. “But the public doesn’t perceive rangelands with the same reverence that we do with forests or other ecosystems. I think if we start to value them at the national level, and realize the potential for ecosystem services and climate mitigation, that could shape how policy is going to move forward.”
The following day, attendees made site visits to two ranches in the area—Red Bluff Ranch, run by MSU, and Green Ranch, owned by Turner Enterprises—for a hands-on look at the topics they had discussed the day before. They examined soil pits, dug into the grass, and talked about different land management styles.
For Senior Scientist Dr. Jonathan Sanderman, the trip into the field was a catalytic moment in the workshop.
“After just a few hours on the ranches, I felt like a lot of people had lightbulbs go off about how long-term management has affected certain parts of land more than others, and how that feeds back to the soils,” Dr. Sanderman said.
One theme that emerged from the workshop was the need for more and better information on how rangelands could be included in carbon markets. While there was interest from landholders in participating, very few knew enough to get started. Drs. Watts and Sanderman hope future collaborations will allow them to dig deeper into the topic with ranchers.
“A well-functioning carbon market can provide climate benefits and an additional revenue stream, enhancing the economic resilience of ranching communities,” Dr. Sanderman said. “Quantifying and monetizing carbon sequestration from improved grazing management is still in its infancy. This means there is a lot of confusion and few agreed upon standards; but, it is also an opportunity to shape policies and design programs that benefit people and the environment.”
It also became evident that, while many ranchers were interested in carbon storage on their lands, what mattered more to them was the possibility of integrated benefits from holistic range management. Improving carbon storage in the soils can improve water management, nutrient retention, and other ecosystem services.
“Carbon is something that brings it all together,” Dr. Watts said.