Biogeochemistry and Soil Quality
The main mission of the Department of Soil Quality and Climate Change is to improve our understanding of soil processes in order to develop soil-related technological solutions for mitigating climate change, reducing impact of pollutants and increasing food production.
Our main research themes are:
- Stability of soil organic matter and the terrestrial C cycle
Biochar technology for soil improvement and carbon storage. - Ecosystem functions of soil organic matter.
- Greenhouse gas emission from pristine and managed ecosystems, with e.g. monitoring sites in pristine and cultivated mires.
- Impact of climate change on soil and ecosystem functions, with e.g. an active warming experiment in the Arctic.
- Modeling tools for greenhouse gas emission from agriculture.
- Soil contamination: bioavailability, fate and transformation of contaminants, transport and uptake by plant and soil organisms, bioremediation, environmental technologies.
- Ecotoxicology of contaminants.
- Evaluation of nanomaterials in the soil environment, both as a remediation technology for polluted soils and as a new source of contaminants.
- Biodiversity and soil functions: microorganisms, rhizobium, mycorrhiza, and soil meso- and macro-fauna.
