DEVELOPING A QUANTITATIVE FRAMEWORK TO PREDICT CLIMATE-INDUCED CHANGES IN SOIL MORPHOLOGY

This project sets out to develop quantitative linkages between soil morphological change and climate with the aim of better understanding and predicting the associated drivers and implications on water resources, carbon pools, and soil health. The following two specific objectives are designed to meet this goal:1. Method development: Analytical techniques and statistical methods will be developed for capturing, quantifying, analyzing, and representing soil morphological data that are sensitive to climate shifts. These include the refinement of existing techniques, application of novel instrumentation and technology (e.g., MLT and HSI), derivation of new metrics from large soil datasets, and representation of spatially-distributed morphological variables.2. Model development: Models that specifically link climatic drivers to soil morphological data will be developed, validated, and applied in this project to predict changes in soil properties and function under future climate scenarios. Examples of specific results from this objective include the construction of linear transport equation models to represent soil morphological development, creation of depth-explicit and temporally-variable pedotransfer functions, and application of hydrologic models (hillslope to continental-scales) to understand climate-induced changes to soil structure.