Soils, Land Use & Global Change
The Soils, Land Use and Global Change team includes a diversity of skills applied to a wide range of research questions, at the interface of agricultural systems and environmental management.
The team conducts basic and applied, component and integrated research into multiple aspects of pastoral farming.
Our strong emphasis is on providing the knowledge and tools for the sector to improve farm system productivity and environmental performance. We address most of the major current challenges facing the sector: pasture productivity, nutrient losses, greenhouse gas emissions, impacts of land use change, adaptation to climate change. Across the team, data and capability resources are maintained to foreshadow future issues and opportunities (e.g. soil carbon farming, system monitoring by remote sensing).
A key strength is the integration of component research (e.g. emissions measurement, CO2 enrichment impacts) into whole system models (e.g. process based simulation modelling, ecosystem service analysis and life cycle analysis) that provide a wider understanding of the challenges of managing multiple outcomes for pastoral systems.
The team is spread across three AgResearch campuses: Invermay, Lincoln and Grasslands, where the majority of the team are based.