oa Using Time-Lapse Near Surface Geophysics to Image the Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services of Soils and the Vadose Zone

The Government in the United Kingdom (UK) is adopting an ecosystems approach in order to more fully integrate the environment, and its ‘goods and services’, into decision making at the highest levels. the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005) provided stark warning that the earth’s ecosystems are rapidly degrading, and that more effort to incorporate the goods and services they provide for human benefit is needed. One of the priorities for research raised by the MEA was the need for mapping ecosystem goods and services, to identify ‘service hotspots’. Near surface geophysics offers great potential for Integrating a range of measurement methods for mapping soil goods and services, which can be thought of as the soil stocks and fluxes from which we benefit. This presentation will present a range of data, including current collaborative research between the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the British Geological Survey to map soils at the field scale, using single pass and time-lapse geophysical imaging. By using a range of geophysical techniques with data fusion, we hope to better determine soil properties with a minimum of disturbance. We aim to quantify both ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ properties and processes in the vadose zone with both one-off surveys, and time-lapse imaging. the use of a time-lapse approach is especially useful for determining hydrological processes in the vadose zone and differentiating these from soil or sediment texture.