Miranda Whall

I am attempting to offer new perspectives on scientific research, in the case of my first creative response Soil Voices by literally embedding my body into the landscape to embody the physical, material, and technological aspects of the project. By entangling myself with the soil, the technology and its data I hoped to become a creature of the mud, the matter, the flesh of the world and embodied technology simultaneously, a kind of cyborg, a human, animal, plant, and machine. My hope is that a de-centred, non- hierarchical and interconnected ecofeminist perspective might enable audiences to listen to what the earth is telling us about it’s condition and how it needs to be managed and protected to sustain human, animal, vegetal, fungal, and bacterial livelihoods as we move into more extreme and unpredictable weather conditions.

“The Making the invisible visible project seeks to address the multiple challenges met by the uplands as more and higher intensity rainfall, more frequent droughts and warmer temperatures – which increase the likelihood of vegetation fires, soil erosion, flooding and soil carbon depletion-  challenge the uplands, while they are still required to support agricultural livelihoods as well as maintain (and increase) carbon stores, biodiversity and water storage. Because the upland landscape variability presents numerous challenges to gathering, analysing and communicating empirical evidence upon which informed decisions can be made to ensure these goals are met the project will employ new sensor technology at 3 sites to record soil temperature and moisture readings. The high-resolution soil temperature and moisture data from the sensor networks will enable improved modelling of soil greenhouse gas emissions for each site. The data and model outputs will be used to test inter-related hypotheses on how climate and land use affect i) the soil carbon store; ii) soil greenhouse gas emissions; and iii) soil water.”  Prof Mariecia Fraser and Prof Andrew Thomas. 

Our approach brings fresh challenges. Environmental sensors can generate huge datasets. Visualising and interpreting these data requires a radical approach that moves beyond traditional statistics and embraces the arts. This is vital if the data are to provide solutions that are tractable and have wider meaning and impact. To address this, our new team brings together expertise in computer science, instrumentation, data handling, agricultural experimentation, soil science, carbon, and interdisciplinary art.

Much of the debate about the impact of climatic changes on the uplands is not well informed by evidence, and thus far there is little consensus amongst stakeholders on how to proceed to ensure uplands are resilient and productive. Understanding how land management decisions affect the ability of uplands to deliver multiple environmental benefits and how to communicate the evidence in an accessible way are critical challenges that this project seeks to address. Combining high frequency automated environmental measurements and artistic interpretation will provide the evidence base and wider engagement that has been lacking to enable informed land management decisions. 

The project will capture the spatial and temporal variability in a limited number of environmental variables at three sites of contrasting altitude, soil type, land use and vegetation cover at Pwllpeiran. We will deploy multiple sensors at each site to record soil temperature and moisture. Long range wifi-repeaters, using signal from the Pwllpeiran offices, will be used to provide internet connectivity to a low-power wide-area network (LoRaWAN). This will enable the sensors to be connected to the internet, thus facilitating the automated collation of the data. 

In conjunction with estimates of soil carbon stocks, the temperature and moisture data from the sensor networks will enable improved modelling of soil greenhouse gas emissions. The models will be tested using empirical data from gas flux chambers that have already been installed at four locations around Pwllpeiran. The data and model outputs will be used to test hypotheses on how climate and land use affect soil carbon stocks, greenhouse gas emissions and water.

Complex data can seem inaccessible to non-experts, but by encouraging different communities to engage with both scientific and non-scientific depictions we aim to challenge perceptions and widen engagement”

Professor Mariecia Fraser and Professor Andrew Thomas, extracts from the National Environmental Research Council (NERC) proposal for the X Disciplinary Hopping Research Project: Making the invisible visible: Instrumenting and interpreting an upland landscape for climate change resilience.