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21 February 2022
Muddy Water Has Town Official Singing the Blues
Coastwatch GLERL NOAA imagery December 17, 2021 (annotated). Several years ago, when our kids were young and at least one was still in elementary school, I visited a class of 3rd graders taught by a friend of the family’s and put on a soil erosion demonstration. The “show and tell” consisted of setting up rainfall simulators for two contrasting land cover types represented by two baking pans: one filled with …
23 February 2020
Lake Erie is Nearly Frost-Free
For the past couple of days, we’ve been lucky to have some all-too-infrequent sunny days, giving us some sunshine to lift our spirits and send us searching for our sunglasses. The clear weather is also a good time for an updated MODIS image of the Lake Erie Basin. The image above shows the lake is nearly ice-free except for some narrow shoreline areas in the western basin. The surface water …
31 March 2017
Wetlands and Flood Mitigation: The 10 Percent Solution
Following the Great Flood of 1993, an official report called for more research to find ways to prevent flood devastation, apparently unaware the problem had been mostly solved, conceptually over a decade earlier. But taking action through the implementation of a national wetland restoration program has faced intractable political and economic obstacles.
1 January 2016
Agricultural Runoff and Ohio’s Senate Bill 1
In response to the August 2014 shutdown of Toledo’s water supply due to microcystin contamination, the Ohio legislature passed Senate Bill 1, which regulates fertilizer and manure application to farm fields. Essentially, the new regulations prohibit spreading manure or fertilizer in the Lake Erie Watershed when soils are frozen, snow-covered or saturated, or if there is a more than 50% chance of at least one-half inch of rain in the …
28 June 2015
The World’s Beaches (Book Review)
For your summer reading edification, this is a wonderful book to take to the beach. Or, if you can’t make the trip, it’s a vicarious journey to beaches around the globe, and an invitation to appreciate their beauty, idiosyncracies, and vulnerability. The full title is The World’s Beaches: A Global Guide to the Science of the Shoreline by Orrin H. Pilkey, William J. Neal, Joseph T. Kelley, and J. Andrew …
17 August 2014
Soil Connections: Drought, Dust and Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria
An unfortunate sequence of events involving drought, depleted water resources, wastewater management, antibiotic resistant bacteria (ABR) and dust storms may pose a real health risk in desert states – and, perhaps, beyond. Briefly, here’s the sequence of steps, beginning with drought and ending with a respiratory infection: 1. Arid states can’t grow everything they want with what little rainfall they get – so they irrigate. 2. Limited fresh water used …
19 July 2012
Introducing the European Geoscience Union – Soil Systems Science Division
The European Geoscience Union, a leader in the free dissemination of scientific research, has rolled out its Soil Systems Science Division (SSSD). The SSSD has a blog newsletter with some fine articles and beautiful images about soils and surface geology of Europe. When Editor Jessica Drake (Soilduck) kindly invited me to write a short “why I do soil science” biographical piece, I jumped at the chance. Being that I’m American, …
4 February 2012
Germany Moving Forward with the Third Industrial Revolution
Despite the high up-front costs of re-building a national power infrastructure, largely decentralized and based on renewable energy sources, Germany remains Europe’s economic powerhouse. In 2007, the European Parliament made a written declaration to establish a Third Industrial Revolution “through partnership with committed regions and cities, SMEs (small and medium-size enterprises) and civil society organizations.” With all of the financial trouble going on in parts of Europe, and Germany’s central role …
28 November 2011
Using Thermogravimetry for Carbon Accounting
Thermogravimetry-Derivative Thermogravimetry (TG/DTG) is a simple and inexpensive method to account for recent soil carbon sequestration. As such, it’s a good choice to be a standardized test in international carbon trading markets. More about TG/DTG shortly, but first, why is this important? Background Here in the United States, clearly, any federal legislation that seeks to reduce carbon emissions, such as by taxation or carbon trading, has no chance of getting through …
10 November 2011
Australia Passes a Carbon Tax
In a bold move, Australia has passed a carbon tax. The 500 largest polluters will pay $23 per tonne. Farmers can cash in by selling carbon offsets, presumably through ways including soil carbon sequestration. Obviously, the measure’s not popular with everyone. Australia mines and uses a lot of coal, even though, as part of the law, there is a lot of money appropriated to support displaced jobs. Scientific American has the …
John Freeland earned a PhD in Soil Science (Pedology) at North Dakota State University and is a consultant working in the private sector. He has published soils research and taught at the high school and college levels. John is interested in wetlands, soil genesis, science communication, the intersection of art and science, and soil-water-landscape processes. John lives near the Ohio-Michigan border and plays bass in multiple music projects.