United States, Europe and China Establish Network to Study Soils to Aid in Producing More Food and Energy

Scientists from the United States, Europe and China have established a network of field research stations to study how soils benefit humanity. The research will focus on processes in the critical zone, the region between the top of a forest canopy and the rock beneath soil.

This new  international collaboration will determine how to protect soil from threats due to climate change and the heightened food and energy demands of an increasing human population.

Credit: Roger Bales, Univ. of California, Merced

Funding from the European Commission includes support for European and Chinese teams to link with researchers funded by NSF's Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) program. Three new CZOs have recently been established with funds from NSF through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, bringing the number of NSF-funded CZO sites to six. The new sites are in the Christina River Basin in Delaware and Pennsylvania, the Luquillo National Forest in Puerto Rico and the Jemez River Basin in New Mexico and Arizona.

This new international partnership promises to shed new light on how these important critical zone processes are affected by climate, the water cycle and land use