BioSolEval

Soil health has become a major issue for European countries and for players in the biomass production and recycling sectors, because healthy soils bring many economic and environmental benefits. However, assessing soil health, and in particular soil biological activity, is a challenge. This is due to (i) a lack of knowledge about the influence of soil properties and farming practices on their biological activity, and (ii) the limitations of the diagnostic solutions currently available on the market.

The project aims to overcome these limitations by developing a new diagnostic tool, called AVATAR-SOL. This tool, which is at the prototype stage, will be inexpensive, easy to use and based on interpretation references. The aim is to generate new knowledge about the factors influencing biological activity in soils, by collaborating with academic, economic and local players in an open science approach.

AVATAR-SOL uses a biodegradable film inserted into a rigid frame. Biological activity is assessed by measuring the degradation of the film after six weeks’ incubation in the soil. The project involves optimising this object (work package 2) and developing a smartphone application to make it easier to use (work package 4). In addition, a reference system (work package 3) will be created to take account of the effect of the soil and climate context on the activity of decomposers, based on equations derived from carbon dynamics models.

The expected results include: (i) an effective and affordable diagnostic solution to help biomass industry players improve the biological activity of their soils, (ii) specifications for industrial deployment, (iii) new scientific knowledge on the factors influencing biological activity, (iv) making AVATAR-SOL data and metadata available to the scientific community, (v) and raising users’ awareness of soil health.

In particular, the project aims to further develop this prototype, named AVATAR-SOL, and make it operational by focusing on the following technical objectives:

1. Optimising the manufacture of the AVATAR-SOL object and drawing up a deployment plan for technology transfer and scaling up to industrial scale;
2. Construction of a reference system for the biological quality of soils based on the level of degradation of the AVATAR-SOL film and the pedoclimatic context;
3. Co-development with the biomass production and recycling industries of a smartphone application for rapid, in situ diagnosis, linked to the benchmark to qualify the biological quality of soils and guide the transition of these industries.