Singing the Praises of Mulch Through Data Sonification - Part 1

Mulch is recognized as an important strategy for climate-change resiliency. Mulch shields soils from exposure to direct sunlight, thus increasing the availability of incident moisture to plants over time. The open-source hardware movement coupled with inexpensive environmental sensors has made it possible for citizen scientists to quantify the impact of mulch in their own back yards. A water-harvesting basin was installed and instrumented for measuring the impact of mulch on soil temperature during the 2024 summer monsoon. Over 3,400 air and soil temperature records were collected between July 26 and August 31 using an open-source datalogger and multiple temperature sensors. A mulch effectiveness index was created by subtracting soil-surface temperature from air temperature. When soil temperatures are low, the potential for water storage is improved and the index is greater than 0. When soil temperatures are relatively high, potential water storage is diminished and the index is less than 0. The addition of mulch to the bare basin on August 16 realized a sustained and dramatic impact on the index independent of rainfall. Results are presented both graphically and by translating data into midi files that can be experienced through sound.
Sonification with Python - How to Turn Data Into Music w Matt Russo
• Sonification with Pyth...
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[@gregbarron-gafford9394]

WOW! This is just toooo cool!

[@jangAckman]

Very interesting, thank you very much for sharing

[@ModestMaker]

Thanks for checking it out! It was a fun project.

[@guatagel2454]

I learned that the most accurate moisture sensors use alpha particle absorption to measure water content in soil. The detector is installed underground and an alpha particle emitter is installed on the surface. This solution is too complicated for makers... for now. But it occurs to me that we, the makers, can measure water absorption by measuring the attenuation of a wifi signal. By putting a wifi emitter underground and the detector on the surface, let's say with two esp32s, we could measure water absorption simply by measuring the intensity of the wifi signal. Are you up for it?

[@guatagel2454]

My bad, there is already a paper titled "Towards low cost soil sensing using wifi" by Jian Ding and Ranveer Chandra, 2019. But, it seems simple to implement it.

[@ModestMaker]

Interesting! You could make a map of your yard's soil moisture using wifi emitters placed strategically around your yard. If you send me some data, I'd be happy to sonify for it you 😉.