Soil compaction risks in Sweden: spatio-temporal assessment under current and future climate

Soil compaction is a worldwide problem in agriculture but is especially severe in regions involving heavy machinery and moist soils, such as the case of Sweden.

The predicted increase of extreme weather events with heavy rainfall will potentially increase the risks of soil compaction in Sweden, indicating an urgent need for a reliable estimation of soil compaction risks under current and future climates. Knowledge of the soil compaction risks is essential to prevent undesirable effects of field traffic.

The risk of soil compaction is seasonally dynamic, depending on weather conditions, crop type and machinery used. Due to this complexity, such dynamic changes are rarely considered in soil compaction risk assessments.

To fill this gap, we will use a combination of in situ measurements and a modeling approach to analyze:  (i) the spatial and temporal variability of soil compaction risk over growing seasons in the major Swedish cropping areas, and ii) how future climate and adapted management strategies affect the risk of soil compaction.

We will derive new pedotransfer functions to estimate soil compressive properties of Swedish soils, which are required for realistic predictions of compaction risks.

In addition to generating fundamental insights into soil compaction risks in Sweden, the project will provide a robust basis for soil management strategies to minimize environmental and economic damage resulting from soil compaction.