Work Packages

The EU directive requires periodic monitoring of soil health in all relevant soils in the EU (see above), as well as the implementation and evaluation of improvement measures. This requires the comprehensive measurement of so-called “soil descriptors.” These are biological, chemical, and physical soil parameters related to soil health.

Until now, the analysis of soil life has been a complex analytical process requiring a laboratory and trained specialists. As a result, it is expert-dependent, time-consuming, and too expensive for regular use.

LIPS (Laser Induced Plasma Spectroscopy | or LIBS = Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy) is a variant of optical emission spectroscopy (OES) and is used for elemental analysis in solids. The solid to be analysed is excited by a laser, generating an analytical spectrum. The LIPS method is already being used successfully in metal analysis, for example, for sorting various materials in the recycling industry.

Long-term over-fertilization in agriculture endangers groundwater quality and soil health and contributes (to a small extent) to greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, N2O). Not only with regard to the groundwater quality required by the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), which is often not met, but also with regard to the stringent requirements of the upcoming Soil Health Act, the costly, episodic laboratory tests…

Time-domain reflectometry (TDR) is a recognized electromagnetic (EM) method for determining the average material moisture content along the TDR probe. Spatial TDR is an innovative extension of the method that allows the determination of moisture profiles along the probe. A TDR is a cable radar with a guided electromagnetic (EM) wave.