X-ray Imaging of the Soil Porous Architecture

Professor Sacha Mooney holds the Chair in Soil Physics at the University of Nottingham. He holds a BSc in Geography and a MSc in Soil Science from the University of Aberdeen. He also holds a PhD in Soil Science from the Department of Agricultural Engineering at University College Dublin. At Nottingham he recently headed the Division of Agriculture and Environmental Science and currently acts as Director of the Hounsfield Facility, a globally unique X-ray Computed Tomography imaging Centre interfaced with robotics dedicated to soil and plant sciences that he founded with colleagues via funding from the Wolfson Foundation, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the European Research Council (ERC) . His research interests focus on the key role soil structure plays in controlling and regulating soil function. His particular expertise is focused on using imagery to quantify soil pore architecture across a range of spatial scales and relate that to strategies for sustainable soil management. He is the current outgoing President of the British Society of Soil Science and sits on the management board for the forthcoming World Congress of Soil Science to be held in Glasgow in 2022.Professor Iain Young is the Dean of the Biological and Environmental Sciences & Engineering Division at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Iain completed his BSc (Hons) at Aberdeen University in 1984, then obtaining a PhD in Soil Physics (1987) in the same institution. He then moved to The Scottish Crop Research Institution (SCRI) as a Research Leader in 1988 - now the James Hutton Institute. Spending 12 years at SCRI, he became Head of the multidisciplinary Soil-Plant Dynamics group, before moving to Abertay University as a Founding Director and Professor of the Scottish Informatics Mathematics, Biology and Statistics (SIMBIOS) Centre. In 2008, he moved to Australia to take up the post of Head of Environmental and Rural Science at the University of New England, in Australia. In 2016 he moved to Sydney University to take up the role of Head of School of Life and Environmental Sciences.  In 2018 he became the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences at Sydney University.  Iain’s main interest is the origin and consequences of the physical of soil and specifically how this interacts with soil microorganisms.  Iain was one of the first soil scientists to use µCT and build a dedicated lab for environmental sciences based on µCT technology.Professor Richard J Heck is a faculty member of the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guelph, Canada. He holds a bachelor's degree in agriculture sciences, as well as M.Sc. and Ph.D. in soil science, specializing in pedology, from the University of Saskatchewan. Prior to his current position, Richard was a lecturer at his alma mater, followed by a term as visiting professor at the Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco in Brazil. His teaching and research now focus on soils and landscape processes, with special interest on the application of x-ray computed tomography to quantify soil microstructure. Over the past decade, Richard has held the position of Special Visiting Researcher at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (Brazil), where he has helped guide the establishment of an x-ray CT laboratory and diverse research programs. In addition to hosting international scholars, he has also attended diverse invitations to speak on and deliver short courses on the applications of x-ray computed tomography to soil. Richard was (2014-2022) Vice-Chair of Commission 1.1, Soil Morphology and Micromorpholgy, and is currently (2022-2026) Chair of Division 1, Soil in Space and Time, of the International Union of Soil Sciences.Professor Stephan Peth is the head of Department of Soil Science at the University of Kassel, Germany. He graduated at the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel with a Masters in Geology and holds a PhD-degree in Soil Science. He was serving as Vice-Chair of the Soil Physics and Hydrology Commission of the German Soil Science Society and as member of the review panel of Imaging Beamlines of the Synchrotron-Facility in Hamburg (DESY). Currently he serves as a Chair of the Soil Physics Commission of the International Union of Soil Science (IUSS) and as Associate Editor for the Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science.

• 40 years of X-ray CT in soil: Historical context.- Practicalities of X-ray CT scanning for the Soil Sciences.- Soil Sampling and Preparation for X-ray Imaging.- Optimising the Scanning Process - Demystifying the dark art of optimising micro tomography scan settings.- X-ray Computed Tomography Image Processing & Segmentation: A Case Study Applying Machine Learning and Deep Learning-Based Strategies.- Quantification of Soil Porous Architecture.- X-ray Computed Tomography for Studying Solute Transport in Soils.- X-ray Imaging of Mechanical Processes in Soil.- X-ray Imaging of Root- Soil Interactions.- X-ray Computed Topography Imaging & Soil Biology.- Integrating X-ray CT data into models.- Future Perspectives.