tag: soil

Monitoring the bio-self-healing performance of cement mortar incubated within soil and water using electrical resistivity

In research on self-healing concrete, the restorative performance can be evaluated by a wide range of techniques. However, most of these techniques can be challenging to apply to concrete samples embedded in soil without causing a significant disturbance to the test (as they require removing the samples from the soil, …

Aspects of microbial communities in peatland carbon cycling under changing climate and land use pressures.

This is a perspective review authored by peatland scientists, microbial ecologists, land managers and non-governmental organisations who were attendees at a series of three workshops held at The University of Manchester in 2019-2020. Here we review the impacts of climate change (search criteria for references are given in the introduction …

Soil biocrusts affect metabolic response to hydration on dunes in west Queensland, Australia

Soil biocrusts, formed from communities of microbes and their extracellular products are a common feature of dryland soil surfaces. Biocrust organisms are only intermittently metabolically active, but due to their ubiquity they make a significant contribution to the carbon cycle. Quantification of the controls and insights into the interlinked process of photosynthesis and respiration are …

Budget 2020: enough cash for trees and soil?

Visit the University of Derby blog for this article I wrote about the new UK budget in March 2020. It’s just over a week since the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak unleashed his ambitious ’spending spree’ budget, marking an end to austerity as a UK economic policy. Instead there …

Experimental data of bio self-healing concrete incubated in saturated natural soil

The provision of suitable incubation environments is vital for successful implementation of bio self-healing concrete (bio-concrete). We investigated the effect of soil incubation to examine if the self-healing process can be activated in comparison with the conventional incubation environment (water). The data was collected from laboratory-scale experiments conducted on mortar …

Microbiological self-healing of structural concrete underground incubation for geotechnical applications

Concrete is the most used construction material worldwide for infrastructure projects. Due to deterioration, regular maintenance works are necessary to seal the concrete cracks and restore durability. In Europe, infrastructures such as tunnels, bridges and earth retaining walls alone cost approximately 5 billion EUR per year. Self-healing strategies (particularly bacterial-based …

The Influence of Trees, Shrubs and Grasses on Micro-Climate, Soil Carbon, Nitrogen and CO2 Efflux: Potential Implications of Shrub Encroachment for Kalahari Rangelands

Shrub encroachment is a well-documented phenomenon affecting many of the world’s drylands. The alteration of vegetation structure and species composition can lead to changes in local microclimate and soil properties which in turn affect carbon cycling. The objectives of this paper were to quantify differences in air temperatures, soil carbon, …