2018 Conference

Poster Presentation

I’m currently conducting a Master’s Thesis at Tarleton State University on resolving the lack of informative soils information in Land Use Planning. While most land use planning text books and guides provide detailed information on potential impacts on water bodies from land use changes, similar detailed information regarding the role of soils is conspicuously missing.

The hypothesis of my thesis is that unnecessary environmental and health impacts can arise from prior land use management practices that result in nutrient, pathogen, or toxic chemical contamination of or movement through soils. I see this issue as being particularly important as housing developments and business locations are located in areas previously occupied by large farming operations, abandoned factories, or junk yards. Through discussions with land use planners, developers, real estate agents, land restoration specialists, and others, I seek to identify current soil assessment practices, any unexpected soil contamination issues experienced during land development, and / or any recommendations for more effectively including soil management or contamination issues as land use transitions occur.

To incorporate this into a poster format the use of soil ecosystem services, the degradation of soil ecosystem services, the pollution during urban developments, and the ideal managment plan for urban developments have been related and shown together to show the impacts that soil ecosystem services have on the world and developments of any sort.