60-70% of soils in the EU are in poor condition. This alarming fact led the EU to launch the Soil Mission to improve the health of European soils. Our team is involved in the international research project BENCHMARKS, which aims to develop tools to assess soil health and find ways to address this situation. We held our first workshop on this issue, introducing stakeholders to soil issues and engaging them on key questions related to urban soil health. The following survey on soil quality in allotments will be RECETOX's next contribution to the Brno Living Lab.
Together with the CzechGlobe Institute for Global Change Research of the Czech Academy of Sciences, we are part of the international research project BENCHMARKS, which aims to address the main reasons why soils in the EU are unhealthy, to develop tools to assess soils in different types of landscapes and at different levels, and also to find sustainable strategies to improve the situation. The key objective is to find effective approaches to monitor soil health and to consolidate them into a single assessment system.
To have the greatest impact, the project aims to help land owners and managers, agricultural and forestry enterprises, scientists, and policymakers to implement appropriate and sustainable soil management. RECETOX will carry out a case study focused on the survey of private or community gardens in Brno. We will determine the condition of the soil, including the possible content of hazardous substances, as part of the Brno Living Laboratory concept. This means that individuals, groups, or organisations with an interest in soil quality will be actively involved in the project activities we will work with them on.
An important step in the project was the recent workshop where we introduced the project and established cooperation with fifty participants. The workshop served as a platform for interdisciplinary knowledge exchange.
The BENCHMARKS project is an important initiative to achieve healthier soils in Europe through the joint efforts of all stakeholders. This would have a long-term impact not only on the environment but also on human health. To have the greatest impact, the project aims to help land owners and managers, agricultural and forestry enterprises, scientists, and policymakers to implement appropriate and sustainable soil management.
More about the project: https://soilhealthbenchmarks.eu/
Soil Mission: http://ec.europa.eu/mission-soil
Project videos: https://youtu.be/3hPlZqwwhhM https://youtu.be/08w1fiKT1x0
A new bioinformatic tool, BGC Atlas, was developed by a consortium of bioinformaticians. It identifies and clusters biosynthetic gene clusters from publicly available datasets, offering a centralised database and a web interface for metadata-aware exploration of BGCs and gene cluster families (GCFs).
On Tuesday, December 10th, the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, appointed new university professors. We are very pleased to announce that among them is Martin Bobák, a representative of the RECETOX center at Masaryk University.
