DUST Devices for Ubiquitous Soil and Temperature measurements (O+)

To date, little is known in Flanders about the soil quality of urban tree mirrors. In the field people often talk about substandard growth spaces and these are intuitively empirically visible, but there are no substantiated objective criteria to strongly adjust this statement. There is no benchmark against which we can test urban soils. This is necessary to convince policymakers to invest more in growing area quality, especially with the current climate problem in which the vulnerability of urban forests to drought, heat and water stress is clearly visible. In addition to objective criteria, the use of a widely deployable monitoring tool is recommended to implement a policy against the above-mentioned vulnerability of the urban forest. With the emergence and accessibility of the Internet of Things (IoT) with cheap sensors and microcontrollers, the automatic logging and visualization of environmental data is more than ever within reach. Two objectives are put forward in this PWO project. On the one hand, the Urban Forestry Lab and the IoT incubator of VIVES will join forces to realize a proof of concept for an open source, real-time soil monitoring network based on low-cost sensors. Such a system will allow cities, contractors, growers, but also private citizen scientists to follow the evolution of the soil moisture condition and temperature via an open platform and, if necessary, to take timely action through site improvement or (temporary) irrigation. On the other hand, the Urban Forestry Lab will draw up an urban soil index in which urban street tree levels will be screened using objective criteria.

Keywords:soil quality, sensors, green management, Internet of Things, climate

Disciplines:Ecological anthropology, Terrestrial ecology, Sensing, estimation and actuating

Project type:Collaboration project