Leading on Climate
Hannah Marsh
Bonnie Reiss CNI Fellow Class of 2019
Bonnie Reiss CNI Fellow
UC Berkeley Undergraduate Student, Environmental Science
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Hannah’s research seeks to understand the effect of food waste compost on soil carbon stocks when applied to grasslands soils in California. The world’s soils are capable of storing three times the amount of carbon than in the atmosphere. With proper management, soil and vegetation could remove large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and help to mitigate climate change. Using a biogeochemical model and lab incubation, Hannah aim’s to quantify the long and short term effects of food waste compost application to carbon fluxes in grassland soils. Better understanding of the effects of compost application on soil carbon sequestration will facilitate the adoption of compost application on grasslands, and thus help to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
