Using spectrophotometric techniques to determine in-situ soil carbon abundances

Things I do, have done, and intend to do

Using spectrophotometric techniques to determine in-situ soil carbon abundances

Keywords

Climate change, blockchain, regenerative agriculture, internet of things, infrared spectroscopy, swarm data transfer

Main ideas

  1. Large growth in corporate and consumer level demand for verifiable CO2 offsets and removal certificates
  2. nori.com and puro.earth trade carbon removal certificates transparently on the blockchain
  3. Regenerative farming practices sequester carbon from the atmosphere in the soil
  4. Farmers can earn money IF they can verify an increase in soil organic carbon
  5. Near infrared spectroscopy is a robust method for verifying soil composition (Nayak+ 2019)
  6. Visual and infrared LEDs enable narrow-band low resolution (R~10) reflectance spectroscopy (spectro-photometry) over a wavelength range of [350, 1700]nm
  7. Internet of things enabled devices (arduino, esp8266) allow compact low energy wireless communications
  8. Swarm communication protocols enable rapid data transfer through spatially distributed hub-less systems
  9. Astronomers have decades of experience with population model fitting to spectro-photometric data sets

By combining the knowledge bases of astronomers, soil scientists, and farmers, with modern advances in cheap electronics, infrared LEDs, and the internet of things (IoT), it should be possible for swarms of in-situ sensors to transfer soil composition data autonomously and in real time, thereby enabling transparent and continuous monitoring and verification of the soil composition (i.e. carbon content) across farmland.

A cheap and easily deployable sensor for continuous in-situ soil carbon measurements may be the final piece needed for farmers to profit from the free-market based mechanisms (i.e. carbon removal certificates), thus providing the financial incentives to encourage the widespread adoption of (urgently needed) regenerative agricultural practices.

Methods

  1. Build a prototype sensor using the ESP8266 board and the 55 LEDs covering the 350-1700nm range from Ushio-Optics
  2. Build a library of soil composition and spectral profiles using laboratory NIR and mass spectrographs for a range of soil conditions (if not already available).
  3. Compare soil reflectance data from the sensor to the spectral library
  4. Deploy sensors on several test fields/farms to collect real data for a year
  5. Periodically make mass-spectroscopy measurements of soil samples for comparison with the photometric sensor data
  6. Develop a model for translating sensor data to soil composition for a list of the most interesting / useful compounds
  7. If this works, apply for more funding and scale up the project.

Technologies

Literature

Funding possibilities

FWF 1000 ideas application - Deadline 15.01.2020 @ 14:00 CET

Contacts

Uni Wien

BOKU (Tulln)