California Collaborative for Natural Climate Change Solutions
Our team is currently carrying out field trials in Yuba and Fresno Counties, CA, to investigate
how the co-application of organic (compost) and inorganic (basalt rock dust) amendments could
increase carbon storage and soil health on working lands. I lead our plant sampling efforts, with
a particular focus on how the amendments impact forage productivity, palatability, and nutrient
contents in range and pasture systems. In the lab, I manage a team of 7 fantastic undergraduate
Sustainability Scholars who are working to characterize the soil, plant, water, and gas samples
from our sites. I am also doing a bit of mapping work to estimate the impact of upstream emissions
on the feasibility of enhanced rock weathering as a carbon dioxide removal strategy, as well as
developing more accurate ways to estimate the carbon dioxide removal potential of different rock sources
using existing geochemical data.
The Finite Source Correction Factor calculator was developed for an internship studying potential updates to the soil-to-groundwater pathway Soil Screening
Levels with U.S. EPA Office of Land and Emergency Management. The calculator incorporates both U.S. EPA default values and user inputs and returns a correction
factor for the Dilution Attenuation Factor, which is currently calculated assuming an infinite source of each contaminant. The calculator can be found here.
