YES-27-B-07: Restoring soil health: Identifying key drivers and feedbacks among biological, chemical, and physical processes

Healthy soils are fundamental to the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, supporting biodiversity, regulating water and nutrient cycling, storing carbon, and underpinning food production. However, agricultural intensification, climate change, and land degradation threaten soil health worldwide, reducing the capacity of soils to deliver essential ecosystem services. While soil health is recognised as an emergent property arising from interacting biological, chemical and physical processes, the relative importance of these components, and their role in governing ecosystem function and resilience, remains poorly understood.

This PhD project will investigate the interactions between biological, chemical and physical soil properties to determine how they collectively influence soil function across agricultural landscapes. The project addresses a key challenge in environmental science: understanding whether soil health is primarily constrained by biological, chemical, or physical factors, and how these constraints vary across environmental conditions, management systems, and stages of soil degradation.

Using a combination of field investigations and laboratory experimentation the research will assess the relationships between soil biodiversity, microbial activity, nutrient dynamics, carbon storage, soil structure, hydrological function, and ecosystem resilience. The project will explore how these components interact to regulate critical ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, nutrient retention, water regulation, and support for above- and below-ground biodiversity.

The student will have the opportunity to work across contrasting agricultural systems and environmental gradients to identify the dominant drivers of soil function and recovery. The student will benefit from world-class research facilities in biology and geography at the University of Leeds, alongside the exceptional environmental science expertise and infrastructure available at the University of York. Working within a multidisciplinary supervisory team spanning plant science, soil science, hydrology, and biogeochemistry, the student will have access to the University of Leeds Farm and an extensive network of academic, industry, and collaborators, providing opportunities for research across a range of field sites and environmental settings.

Read more about our research on Regenerative Agriculture here