Aberdeen-China link in world hunt for a pollution solution

Varsity leads international project to develop smart tools

Researchers at Aberdeen University are leading an international project designed to develop “smart tools” for producers in China, helping them to address a range of farm-based environmental impacts.

The project, already backed by £1.1 million of UK funding, involves 12 British partners and 15 Chinese institutions. Their commitment is to work together to develop sophisticated, but simple to use, tools that can guide future policy and farming, initially in China, but eventually on a world basis.

This will range from smartphone apps that farmers can use in the field to specialist software that can test the environmental impacts of farm practices over large areas of land.

“The project follows on from arguably the deepest ever study of agricultural impacts on soil and water in China,” said project leader Professor Paul Hallett, from Aberdeen’s School of Biological Sciences.

“Most studies of soils have been limited to shallow depths, but these new findings have shed a lot of light on just how much applied fertilisers may be seeping out of soils to pollute water and air.

“Much more was studied in these projects than ever before, including pathogen movement, soil formation, erosion and greenhouse gases. They also considered social factors driving farming practice and explored how farmers get information on better practices.”

The project, called MIDST-CZO, has received £1.1m from the UK’s Natural Environmental Research Council plus undisclosed funding from the National Science Foundation of China.

“We are looking forward to continued collaboration with the UK,” said Ganlin Zhang, professor of soil science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute.

Apps can test fertiliser impact on the soil.