Advanced Cosmic Ray Instrumentation for Agricultural Water Scarcity Resilience
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Sheffield
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
Are cosmic rays a 21st century divining rod?
By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in absolute water scarcity and two-thirds of the world's population live in water-stressed conditions. Agricultural water consumption accounts for 70% of the world's water usage so measurements of soil water content have the potential to direct water usage to where its most needed and alleviate the effects of water scarcity. Water is also essential for food production with demand required to grow by 60% by 2050.
Cosmic rays are nature's x-rays, a type of naturally occuring and highly penetrating radiation that is already allowing scientists to famously image the interior of pyramids as well as volcanoes and cargo containers for smuggled nuclear materials. Our project explores a novel application of cosmic rays - to measure the water content within soil.
When cosmic rays strike the ground they can interact with the material close to the surface, creating other particles, called neutrons. It so happens that the number of neutrons that are produced is related to the amount of water in the ground. Therefore by measuring the neutrons we learn something about the groundwater content.
Our project sets out to develop a novel type of low-cost instrumentation, capable of measuring these cosmic-ray induced neutrons, thus providing us with a 21st century diving rod that will help in the global fight against water scarcity.
By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in absolute water scarcity and two-thirds of the world's population live in water-stressed conditions. Agricultural water consumption accounts for 70% of the world's water usage so measurements of soil water content have the potential to direct water usage to where its most needed and alleviate the effects of water scarcity. Water is also essential for food production with demand required to grow by 60% by 2050.
Cosmic rays are nature's x-rays, a type of naturally occuring and highly penetrating radiation that is already allowing scientists to famously image the interior of pyramids as well as volcanoes and cargo containers for smuggled nuclear materials. Our project explores a novel application of cosmic rays - to measure the water content within soil.
When cosmic rays strike the ground they can interact with the material close to the surface, creating other particles, called neutrons. It so happens that the number of neutrons that are produced is related to the amount of water in the ground. Therefore by measuring the neutrons we learn something about the groundwater content.
Our project sets out to develop a novel type of low-cost instrumentation, capable of measuring these cosmic-ray induced neutrons, thus providing us with a 21st century diving rod that will help in the global fight against water scarcity.
Planned Impact
The focus of this work is to pump-prime the development of unique, low-cost, rugged instrumentation capable of being deployed in the field to provide critical information on ground water availability. Whilst the initial deployments of this instrumentation will be in the UK it is our intention to develop this project, through GCRF funding, with suitable international partners, to target ODA-supported areas of the world.
As such, as the project evolves, developing nations will benefit from our work. The deployment of low-cost sensors to image groundwater concentration could quantitatively inform and transform water usage decision-making in the farming communities of ODA-recipient countries. The proposed instrumentation promises greatly improved efficiency in the detection and hence use of ground water, which in turn should have a positive environmental impact alongside improved public health in those areas where water scarcity and hunger go hand in hand.
The proposers have strong, close, collaborative links with LabLogic, with whom we have developed a unique UK supply of low-cost scintillator. This means that UK industry will also benefit from our work. Furthermore, LabLogic's sister company, Southern Scientific, specialises in environmental monitoring and would be well-placed to market future commercial products resulting from this research - thus further increasing impact to UK industry.
As such, as the project evolves, developing nations will benefit from our work. The deployment of low-cost sensors to image groundwater concentration could quantitatively inform and transform water usage decision-making in the farming communities of ODA-recipient countries. The proposed instrumentation promises greatly improved efficiency in the detection and hence use of ground water, which in turn should have a positive environmental impact alongside improved public health in those areas where water scarcity and hunger go hand in hand.
The proposers have strong, close, collaborative links with LabLogic, with whom we have developed a unique UK supply of low-cost scintillator. This means that UK industry will also benefit from our work. Furthermore, LabLogic's sister company, Southern Scientific, specialises in environmental monitoring and would be well-placed to market future commercial products resulting from this research - thus further increasing impact to UK industry.
| Description | A new software framework was produced to simplify calculations of the effect of soil moisture on the cosmic ray neutron rate. Prototype low-cost instrumentation capable of monitoring ground water content through cosmic ray neutrons was developed. |
| Exploitation Route | Members of CEH have expressed difficulty in using some previous simulation frameworks, therefore the release of an open source CRESTA expansion for use by members of the hydrologist community provides additional societal impact through high energy physics knowledge transfer. The problem of overlying water and, in general monitoring soil water moisture, has a strong relevance to growing rice, given its relative importance as a global crop. Rice is the most important food crop of the developing world and the staple food of more than half of the world's population. Around 5,000 litres of water are required per kilogram of rice with varying methods of field flooding, irrigation and drying are used. If the instrumentation developed as part of this grant were used for this important crop, the measurements would be inaccurate due to variations in the neutron to moisture calibration curve with the growing season. The work undertaken provided a first understanding of the effect of standing water and the capability to provide a calibration curve throughout the growing season. |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink |
| Description | Work on instrumentation here has subsequently led to next-generation low-cost cosmic ray neutron sensors being developed that are currently being assessed, through our involvement in the STF Food Network + (SFN+) at a smart farm in Newcastle. Such detectors would be accessible (due to their low cost) to second and third world farmers and will provide important information on soil moisture content, etc. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
| Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink |
| Impact Types | Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Description | Collaboration with Centre for Ecology and Hydrology |
| Organisation | UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Meeting initiated by our team with NERC-funded CEH at Wallingford to discuss COSMOS detectors. |
| Collaborator Contribution | We are developing low cost neutron detectors capable of performing soil moisture measurements. There is an agreement that, once field-deployable, these detectors will be co-deployed alongside the COSMOS detectors that CEH use to cross-calibration and assess their viability. |
| Impact | No outputs as yet, planned co-deployment of our detectors and COSMOS detectors. Multi-disciplinary agreement between particle physics and environmental science. |
| Start Year | 2019 |