UN Internship Leads to Excitement About Future Career in Biodiversity Monitoring
CREATE-CSS Internship Experience with the Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity by Deniz Dutton, MSc Student at McGill University (supervised by Dr. Cynthia Kallenbach) As an intern with the Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity, my job was…
We’re hiring a post-doc!
CREATE-CSS is looking for a post-doc to join Dr. Claudia Wagner-Riddle‘s lab. If you are interested in using biogeochemical models and remote sensing data to scale up changes in soil carbon storage inferred from a variety of field methods, check…
Homecoming: Gaining Insights into Eastern and Western Academic Values
CREATE-CSS Internship Experience with Fujian Academy of Agricultural Science, China by Bangwei Zhang, PhD Candidate at Dalhousie University (supervised by Dr. David Burton) In the late spring of 2023, the plane took off from Halifax, traveled through Toronto, Hong Kong…
Water resilience and soil health: Undergrad research at UofM
Summer 2023 Research Experience by Grace Thomson, University of Manitoba (supervised by Dr. Martin Entz) This summer I had the opportunity to work in Dr. Entz’s Natural Systems Agriculture lab at the University of Manitoba. My project focused on assessing…
Unleashing Resilience: How Conservation Agriculture Transformed Tharaka Nithi
Introduction Tharaka Nithi, a county nestled in the heart of Eastern Kenya, is no stranger to the challenges a changing climate poses. For generations, its farmers have battled unpredictable rainfall, soil degradation, and food insecurity. However, amidst these difficulties, a…
Developing a Root Imagery Tool to Analyze Cover Crop Roots
Summer Research Experience Olivia Wallace, undergraduate at the University of Guelph This summer I have been working in Dr. Claudia Wagner-Riddle’s agricultural meteorology lab at the University of Guelph. Much of my summer has centered on constructing and testing a…
On Soil Carbon Sequestration in Canada’s Managed Soils
Internship Experience with Soil Conservation Council of Canada and Compost Council of Canada By Rebecca Johnson, MSc Graduate from the University of Guelph Carbon sequestration has been a hot topic recently, with companies investing in reforestation with worldwide efforts to…
10 Lessons I Learned from the CREATE-CSS Core Course 2020
Reflective Essay Assignment By: Paige Kennedy, MSc Student at the University of Saskatchewan CREATE-Climate Smart soils is an interdisciplinary program that works to address climate change through soil science training. In the face of a changing climate, concerns about sustainability…
Student Perspective: LCA & Economics
Following yesterday’s post about the CREATE-CSS Annual Meeting: Climate-Smart Connections, today we are sharing a student’s reflection on the Life Cycle Analysis and Economics session. Emily Laage, an MSc student studying with Dr. Peter Tyedmers at Dalhousie University, presented during…
1st CREATE-CSS Annual Meeting
Climate-Smart Connections In February, we held our first CREATE-CSS Annual Meeting. We had big plans for this to be a great in-person networking event; however, due to COVID-19 circumstances we changed our plans to what turned out to be a…
On Scaling Up Conservation Agriculture
Internship Experience with Canadian Foodgrains Bank By Jess Nicksy, MSc student from the University of Manitoba The two greatest gifts of being an NSERC CREATE Climate Smart Scholar are the incredible people you get to meet, and the chances it…
On Canada’s Business Risk Management Programs
Internship Experience with Farmers for Climate Solutions By Tasmia Kabir, MSc graduate from FARE, University of Guelph Recently I graduated from Food, Agriculture and Resource Economics at the University of Guelph. I have been a scholar of CREATE Climate-Smart Soils…
Life Cycle Analysis of Food Systems
A Student Communication Piece By Sage Mosgrove, undergraduate at Dalhousie University My name is Sage and I’m an undergrad student from Dalhousie University, and a member of the CREATE Climate-Smart Soils program. This summer I assisted Drs. Peter Tyedmers and…
Dear Government From, Students
An exercise in policy briefs As part of the CREATE Climate-Smart Soils program students participate in an intensive week-long core course where they learn the ins and outs of climate-smart soils. For our Year 1 students, the core course took…
We are a national program with an international team of scholars
Local research program? Nope. We represent over half the world’s continents Within five months of its first year, CREATE-CSS has already brought together students and researchers from around the world. Between our first 12 students, we have representation from North…
What are Climate-Smart Soils?
You may be asking, what ARE climate-smart soils?
Climate-Smart Soils: A concept
The concept of climate-smart soils originated in the 2016 Nature paper by Paustian et al. The key is that soils have the capacity to sequester carbon and remove it from the atmosphere, thus helping the fight against climate change!
This depends on management, however. Soils also release greenhouse gases, especially agricultural soils which contribute a major share (37%) of agricultural emissions, mainly from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O, which comes mostly from nitrogen fertilizer applied to the soil). Improved soil management can reduce these emissions by converting the CO2 taken up by plants into soil organic matter.
A pathway to implementation
Paustian et al. suggest a path from research and monitoring > practices to sequester carbon in the soil and reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions > policies and systems to support implementation. Our program aims to expose our scholars to all these steps, so that they can work at implementing real solutions!
