We Measure The World METER Group, Inc. USA

Half of the world relies on rice for about 80% of their food intake. Unfortunately, rice is highly susceptible to the uptake of arsenic from soil and groundwater. To mitigate the uptake of poisons into the worldwide food supply, Mason Stahl, an associate professor in the environmental science policy and engineering program and the geosciences department at Union College, is utilizing machine learning and direct sampling to help mitigate dangerous levels of arsenic in our food. Join us in this episode as we discuss arsenic, uranium, and the global food chain.

Slope stability is unpredictable — or is it? The risk of landslides threatens roads, rails, homes, and lives. Being able to forecast where and when slopes will fail means giving communities the power to keep infrastructure and people safe. In this episode, we talk with civil engineer Dr. Ning Lu about his experience studying slope stability. Learn about the breakthrough slope stability predictive formula he helped develop in this episode of We Measure the World.

Achieving water balance isn’t easy, but it is critical. Whether you’re concerned with fields or ecosystems, understanding the balance between water, nutrients, and pollutants can be the difference between success and failure. In this episode, agricultural engineer and professor Erin Brooks discusses crop cover, the hydrological impacts of management choices, and finding the balance between field work and modeling.

Advancements in irrigation, pest management, and other grower concerns are useless if they are never adopted. How do you gain the trust and by-in from growers to test new techniques and technologies on a large enough scale to prove viability? In this episode, we talk to agronomist Saul Alarcon about his success working with some of the largest tomato-production networks and how he has helped keep his grower partners remain at the cutting edge of water conservation, pest and weed control, and everything else that feeds into optimal crop production.

For more information on measurements that make precision farming possible, visit metergroup.com

Every 17 years cicadas emerge from the earth to mate, leaving thousands of holes peppering the landscape. Dr. Darren Ficklin and his Ph.D. students wondered what impact this monumental exodus has on the movement of water within the soil. Their findings were beyond what anyone could have ever imagined. In this podcast, we talk to Dr. Ficklin about his past and current work studying the intersection of climate and hydrology.

Colorado’s Saving Tomorrow’s Agricultural Resources (STAR) program provides a voluntary way for farmers and ranchers to assess their conservation efforts and impact on soil health. Creating a large-scale agroecosystem management comes with many funding and logistical tribulations. In this podcast, we talk to the founders of this program, Drs. Jim Ippolito and Steve Blecker, about what impacts soil health, how it’s measured, and the hope of a nationwide soil health rating scale.