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| Title | Validation of Earthwatch SoilHealthWatch |
| Group | Soil Biology |
| Project type | thesis |
| Credits | 24-39 |
| Supervisor(s) | Paolo Di Lonardo |
| Examiner(s) | Rachel Creamer |
| Contact info | Paolo.dilonardo@wur.nl |
| Begin date | 2024/09/01 |
| End date | 2025/03/01 |
| Description | Earthwatch Europe is an environmental NGO and we support communities and organisations to build knowledge, create connections and motivate action, often through the use of citizen science.
Earthwatch uses citizen science, actively involving non-scientists in scientific research. Unlike traditional research approaches, citizen science provides opportunities for greater public engagement. Soils are essential for most biological processes on our planet. Healthy soils are able to hold water, enable plants to grow their roots and are full of life. They support biodiversity, clean water, climate regulation and so much more - and yet they are being degraded at an alarming rate. Earthwatch has developed a soil health tool kit (named SoilHealthWatch or SHW) as a way to determine soil quality, in combination with a survey app, using our citizen science approach. It is a low tech, practical method that determines different elements of soil health including porosity, texture, colour and earthworms and takes about 20-30 minutes to complete. All the results entered in the app, in combination with the location, will be displayed on our online dashboard. These data will be open to all the participants and can be used to look at the local soil quality. Research proposal In this research proposal we would like to validate and quality control our SHW using different approaches. As part of the BENCHMARKS (https://soilhealthbenchmarks.eu/) project we are organising short events, soil blitzes, where communities are testing local soil health using our SHW. These soil data can be analysed to determine the validity of the different parameters. Surveys and questionnaires could be used to research quality control by looking at correct use of the tool and its relation to data quality. Finally, the tool could be tested by the student themselves by using the tool across different environments and compare these. Additionally, they could be tested against other existing (proven) methods, such as lab testing. Overview Protocol validation/ Quality control: - Analysis of Soil Blitz data - Survey/questionnaire for Soil Blitz participants - Test SHW across different environments Method validation: - Compare SHW results with those from a lab, or other scientifically proven method |
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