Technology could help us hear if our soil is healthy or not

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-09-04 09:01

Australia; SA

What does this mean?

Jump to: MultimediaAttachmentsExpert Reaction

Technology that can hear critters in the ground could help us track how healthy our soil is, according to an Australian review. The researchers looked into ecoacoustics - a technique where audio technology is deployed to record the different sources of sound in the soil to monitor its biodiversity. They say 59% of the world's species live in soil but 75% of soils have been affected by environmental degradation, meaning it's important to keep track of soil health. They say while there's still work to do to develop the best ways of turning the audio data into useful information, determine how this information is shared, and improve the ability of technology to ignore background noise, it has the potential to improve how we manage conservation and restoration of damaged soils around the world.