Yuxin Pan

About

Yuxin Pan is studying Environmental Architecture at the Royal College of Art and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Design from Huazhong University of Science and Technology. As a spatial designer, she wants to explore the relationship between space and environmental change at different scales, and remains open to experimenting with new environmentally friendly materials and technologies.

Project: Sounding Soil

Soil structure is extremely fragile in the Alentejo region of southern Portugal, which is under serious threat of desertification due to climate change, expansion of the Sahara Desert and irrational human farming. The project focuses on the innovative use of soil eco-acoustics to detect early signs of soil degradation and desertification, and to understand the impact of human interventions on the soil environment.

In collaboration with our agricultural partners in the Alentejo region – Eva Barrocas’ Montado Farm and Terra Sintropica – we recorded and analysed soil sounds at different depths to establish indicators of soil degradation through soil sounds. These analyses aim to reveal how different agricultural practices affect the process of soil desertification.

Soil sound analysis as a sustainable, non-invasive method provides farmers and land managers with valuable insights to better understand soil conditions, assess the long-term impacts of agricultural practices and select the most appropriate soil management methods.

We currently have established a soil sound digital platform that lays the foundation for future research to further explore the acoustic properties of different soil depths and types, which will help to build a comprehensive soil sound database that will contribute to human understanding and governance of the land in the face of environmental challenges.