RISE-IN Partners Explore Progress in Red Zone Soil Testing

On the 14^th of August, Christchurch City Council representatives Julianne Hughey, Zane Lazare, Breanna Stocks and Dave Little visited colleagues at the Bioeconomy Science Institute to learn more about the soil testing underway for the red zone soil carbon project.

During the visit, the team demonstrated their soil testing process and shared progress made so far. The work is already highlighting potential spinoffs into other areas, underlining the wider value of research taking place in Christchurch’s Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor.

Today, the red zone has become a living laboratory for exploring how land can be managed after retreat. Supported by Horizon Europe funding through the RISE-IN project, researchers are testing how biochar and other soil amendments can be used to build carbon in depleted managed-retreat soils, and developing more affordable ways to measure and verify those changes, including low-cost sensors that monitor soil carbon dioxide remotely rather than relying on invasive lab sampling. Proving the verification step is the key to making soil carbon count in carbon markets in future. Alongside this, the team is monitoring how planted species interact with residual soil contaminants, which may indicate remediation benefits as a further spinoff from the work.