Establishment of the North Eastern Soil Monitoring Cooperative

A workshop organized by Greg Lawrence and Scott Bailey to establish the cooperative was held at the New York Water Science Center, Troy, New York, USA on 6–7 March 2007. Environmental monitoring is an essential tool for identifying the effects of human activities on the biosphere and for evaluating government policies designed to ameliorate these effects. The need for environmental data has led to national programs to monitor atmospheric deposition, the composition and growth of forests, and the chemistry of lakes and streams in regions affected by acidic deposition. However, there has been no organized effort to date to monitor changes in soils despite their importance to agriculture, forest growth, wetlands, and water quality, and their susceptibility to environmental stresses such as acidic deposition and climate change. The lack of attention given to soil monitoring can be attributed, in part, to questions regarding its feasibility. These questions derive from a common belief that soils are more likely to change over centuries than decades, and the knowledge that soils are highly variable in both vertical and horizontal space, a characteristic that complicates repeated sampling of the same soil. Within the past 15 years, however, changes in soil chemistry in eastern North America and Europe have been measured through resampling in a variety of soil types, over sampling intervals as short as 5 years. More opportunities for measuring soil change are becoming available through early investigations of acidic deposition effects, as well as other past ecosystem studies. As the number of these studies has grown, so too has the recognition that methods for sample collection and analysis are not always compatible, and methods for archiving are not well developed. Without established protocols that are both effective, and consistent among studies, the transfer value of individual studies is limited. To promote the coordinated collection of high-quality data on soil change, the first workshop on soil monitoring in the Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada was held to organize interested individuals and institutions into a cooperative network. The workshop was sponsored by the Northeastern States Research Cooperative and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Representatives from nine federal and state agencies from the United States and Canada participated, along with faculty and students from eight academic institutions. The workshop began with invited presentations on the possibilities and pitfalls of soil resampling by Arthur Johnson, University of Pennsylvania; Daniel Richter, Duke University; and Scott Bailey, USDA Forest Service. The next segment of the workshop involved discussions in which the mission of the cooperative was defined and specific objectives were identified, such as the development and sharing of field and laboratory protocols, the compilation of an inventory of historic and ongoing studies that could contribute information on soil change, and the design of a rigorous data collection program that will address emerging issues, as well as provide long-term continuity. Discussion followed on the steps needed to accomplish these objectives, including how to design sampling plots, appropriate methods for soil collection, the need for shared reference samples, and the development of effective archiving protocols. An additional objective of the cooperative will be to synthesize available information on methods into recommendations that will be published as agency or institutional reports. On the second day of the workshop, task groups were formed to address a number of issues involving methods, compilation of available data, and identification of ongoing studies. A steering committee was formed to guide the ongoing development of the cooperative. A journal article that will serve as a literature review of soil resampling was also outlined by interested workshop participants. A second workshop is planned for late Fall 2007. Web site planning is in the early stages, but information is available at: Greg Lawrence (518) 285-5664 E-mail: glawrenc@usgs.gov or Scott Bailey (603) 535-3262 E-mail: swbailey@fs.fed.us

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