Carbon Farming (CF) is an emerging method contributing to greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, mainly through soil carbon sequestration. CF consists of numerous agricultural practices (e.g., No-tillage, Cover cropping, Crop Rotation etc.) that help in the reduction of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) releases and enrich the below-ground biomassstorage in soil. To investigate how CF practices were aligned with stakeholders' needs, an in-depth questionnaire was designed under the frameworks of the CARBONICA project. Following the questionnaire, a second phase of face-to-face interviews was performed. Three Multi-Actor Platforms (MAPs) have been created in each of the three countries to facilitate the stakeholders’ interaction, i.e., Cyprus (CY), Greece (GR), and North Macedonia (NMK). The questionnaire aimed to identify the current knowledge and existing gaps in the agricultural sector related to CF, and the willingness to adopt CF practices, focusing on the quadruple helix (QH). Participants in this survey were primarily farmers, with 44%, 31%, and 58% in CY, GR, and NMK, respectively. The data analysis indicated that the primary interest of the participants was toward potential financial benefits rather than environmental gains. 33% (CY), 41% (GR), and 47% (NMK) showed a high interest in CF, showing a willingness to embrace these approaches. Poor knowledge of CF was identified from this survey. Questions related to the European Union were also included, illustrating different opinions from each country. A detailed country-based analysis will be included in the respective study for knowledge gained based on the QH needs to promote agricultural sustainability through CF practices.
Industrialization and intense human activity affect soil ecosystem, and as a result of heavy metal contamination, its physicochemical and biological activities are disturbed. To safeguard soil capital, prevention and monitoring strategies need to be introduced, but taking into consideration the induced costs, in terms of time, effort and money. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy is proven to be a rapid and inexpensive method for the determination of various chemical compounds found in soil, including heavy metals. We collected 64 soil samples from an area of 10km2 at the western part of Thessaloniki, Greece, which is known to be degraded due to heavy industrial activity. The samples were analyzed at the accredited chemical laboratory of the InterBalkan Environment Center for the determination of two (Cadmium, Lead,) heavy metals (DTPA extraction with the use of Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy AAS). In parallel the soil samples were also spectroscopically analyzed, aiming to construct a regional soil spectral library that can be used as a dataset for fitting Machine Learning models for the quantification of land degradation through the determination of heavy metal concentration. Aspiring to reduce the laboratory procedure, we resampled the spectrum to the bands captured by a recently launched hyperspectral mission, providing a proof of concept regarding the monitoring of soil contamination by heavy metals by analyzing spaceborne hyperspectral data.
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