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What's in your lawn?

Lakehead looking for local soil samples for carbon research

Lakehead University is digging for answers and it wants local residents to help out.

Florin Pendea, associate professor with the departments of sustainability sciences and geography at the Orillia campus, is studying soil to determine how much carbon it contains.

The focus is on urban soil.

“We often look as these places as wastelands or concrete jungles that don’t contribute to the environment, but that’s not always true,” he said. “The fate of that soil is important because we want to know if the carbon stays in the soil or goes back in the atmosphere as a result of decomposition.”

The goal is to see how much carbon the soil traps, and that could depend on a number of factors. That’s why Pendea is appealing to residents to offer samples for his research.

People tend to their lawns in different ways. Some use chemicals, while others simply water their lawns, and others neglect them altogether. Regardless of residents’ groundskeeping practices, Pendea wants to hear from them.

“It’s not about pointing fingers,” he assured. “I just want to know, when it comes to storing carbon in the soil, which lawns are the winners in the contest, so to speak. I want to know if it matters when it comes to global warming.”

He has been studying carbon capture in wetlands in the Lake Simcoe watershed, but the urban component is “the biggest unknown right now,” he said.

What people do with their lawns could have a positive effect on the environment, depending on how much carbon the soil traps, preventing it from being released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas..

“I’d like to create a little bit of optimism,” Pendea said. “The single most important challenge for the 21st century is going to be climate change. It’s up to us what kind of future we want for these places.”

Pendea will incinerate the samples to determine the level of carbon dioxide.

Those who are willing to provide samples from their properties can contact Pendea at 705-330-4008, ext. 2653, or [email protected].


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Nathan Taylor

About the Author: Nathan Taylor

Nathan Taylor is the desk editor for Village Media's central Ontario news desk in Simcoe County and Newmarket.
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