Soil structure dynamics matters: Modelling the impact of land management on soil functions using BODIUM

BODIUM is a systemic soil model that integrates the most important processes and components in soil and at the soil-plant interface in order to predict land management impact on soil functions.

A central role plays soil structure dynamics. Different land use and tillage regimes alter the pore space in a characteristic way. Biological processes such as root growth and earthworm activity contribute to the changes in soil pore structure.

We show model scenarios where different structure dynamics are evaluated in their effect on plant growth, water percolation including fast breakthrough due to macropore flow, and nutrient efficiency.

Parts of the soil structure modeling are supported by the open access soil structure library (https://structurelib.ufz.de/; Weller et al., 2022), where characteristic macro- and mesopore architectures obtained from Xray-CT imaging are available for different soil types and soil managements.

The model also allows exploration of climate change scenarios and evaluation of mitigation strategies.

Reference:

Weller, U., Albrecht, L., Schlüter, S., and Vogel, H.-J.: An open Soil Structure Library based on X-ray CT data, SOIL, 8, 507–515, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-8-507-2022, 2022.