Advancing Soil Science and Research on Boulder City Open Space and Mountain Parks Land: Info Packet for City Council
Publication
April 11, 2019
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This memo describes recent work conducted by OSMP staff in 2018 on soil health and sustainability. In 2018, OSMP staff accomplished the following:
Conducted a pilot project on Carbon Farming that explored how compost applications and keyline plowing could be used as management interventions to increase soil health in degraded agricultural fields.
Conducted a first-ever Grassland Soils Inventory and used the data to establish a critical positive link between soil carbon storage and native plant species diversity.
Co-sponsored the well-received Soil Revolution Conference, a full-day event on soil health and agricultural production held at the Jewish Community Center in Boulder.
Supported several citywide collaborations on managing carbon and soils in urban settings.
In 2019, OSMP staff plans to accomplish the following:
Continue work on Carbon Farming, the Grassland Soils Inventory project and the 2019 edition of the Soil Revolution Conference.
Support a new citizen science initiative to understand and improve agricultural soil health in the Boulder Valley.
Sponsor a research study on the effects of atmospheric nitrogen deposition to soils and the concomitant spread of non-native plant species.
Serve as a technical advisor on a $24,800 grant received from western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) to investigate whether providing annual soil health testing, education and team building will lead to broader adoption of practices which improve soil health.
Continue strategizing how best to incorporate the work of soil health into OSMP’s Master Plan that is scheduled to be completed later this summer. Combined, OSMP’s recent and ongoing work on soils represents a renewed recognition of the essential ecosystem services that soils provide on City open space, including carbon sequestration in agricultural lands and the promotion of native plant diversity in upland grasslands. This work also highlights important management interventions that OSMP can build on to conserve and improve soil health.
FISCAL IMPACT
Recently, OSMP has spent approximately $60,000 on advancing soil science and research, in addition to staff time. Going forward, staff has worked on grant proposals to secure funding for additional soils-related work and have proposed an additional $182,000 in the 2020 CIP to work on 100 to 150 acres of agricultural rehabilitation projects, including continued research on soils.
BACKGROUND
Maintaining healthy soils is critical for the long-term sustainability of agricultural lands and natural areas. In agricultural settings, healthy and productive soils allow farmers to obtain high crop yields with lower expenses and less damage to the environment. In natural areas, intact soils stabilize slopes, slow flood waters, and promote native biodiversity, including thousands of native plant species and millions of species of insects, bacteria and fungi.
The sequestration of atmospheric carbon is another essential ecosystem service provided by soils. In the Boulder Valley, agricultural lands represent one of the biggest opportunities for accelerating carbon sequestration using innovative farming practices, such as compost application, that build soil organic matter. Boulder natural areas, in contrast, represent a major existing carbon sink. Intact topsoil and standing vegetation contain millions of tons of sequestered carbon. Preventing land conversion and reducing the impacts of fires and floods are critical strategies for keeping this carbon and out of the atmosphere.
A major threat to soils in our area is soil erosion. This can be caused by a variety of factors, including overgrazing by livestock or native species such as prairie dogs, continuous tilling of fields, and catastrophic events like fires, floods, wind storms, and droughts. In 2018, a team of environmental planners from across the city identified soil loss as one of the three most critical ecological issues facing Boulder, along with landcover change (e.g., 25% loss of tree canopy cover to emerald ash borer) and species loss (e.g., pollinator decline).
