In our second webinar of the GGR programme’s lunchtime webinar series Professor Pete Smith from the University of Edinburgh presented results and continuing research from the SOILS R-GGREAT project which is assessing the potential for soils to deliver greenhouse gas removals and abatement technologies.
This consortium project has produced 65 journal publications to date and there will be more in the coming months. Professor Smith presented research on a range of important aspects of soil-based GGR that the project is investigating. These include approaches to modelling the potential of croplands and grasslands to deliver GGR through soils at a global scale and life cycle analyses of effects of carbonation, biochar addition and enhanced weathering on soils in Brazil. Researchers have also been investigating potential of soil based GGR for perennial crops such as vineyards.
Alongside the biophysical potential of different soil based GGR options, the project is also investigating the economic and societal limits that could present widespread implementation. Researchers are conducting cost benefit analyses and developing marginal abatement cost curves. They are assessing five different case studies that represent a mix of land use and geographic areas to enable a deep dive into the costs and benefits of soil based GGR techniques.