Soils PacWest
Campaign name: Supporting Energy–Human–Earth System Modeling (Soils PacWest)
The recent presidential memo outlining FY 2027 national research and development priorities emphasized American energy dominance as a strategic national priority supporting advances in nuclear, geothermal, hydropower, and fossil fuel power generation, all of which require accurate understanding of water resources and management. The Department of Energy Office of Science's Biological and Environmental Research program emphasizes the need for regional-scale energy–human–Earth system models to better manage land and water for improved energy system planning, abundance, and reliability. As highlighted in the presidential research and development priorities memo, the creation and publicizing of large gold-standard structured scientific datasets are critical for AI modeling advances. These coupled energy–human–Earth system models require structured, high-quality, regional-scale soil data suitable for AI analysis to improve our process understanding of how landscapes respond to stressors such as drought, wildfire, atmospheric rivers, and coastal flooding and their regional-to-local impacts on water resources needed for energy systems. Soils naturally record these events as molecular and microscale biological, chemical, and physical signals. By studying molecular soil data—such as organic matter composition, microbial diversity, and metabolic potential—scientists can improve predictions of land use suitability for food, bioenergy, and energy systems.
The Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) Molecular Observation Network (MONet) capability provides standardized, high-quality molecular soil datasets well suited for use with advanced analytics and modeling tools, including AI. In a campaign titled, "Supporting Energy–Human–Earth System Modeling" (Soils PacWest), EMSL will build on the foundational MONet soil core-to-data capability while focusing efforts on the Pacific West Coast region, which is experiencing rapidly expanding, competing energy and land use needs. By improving knowledge of biological, chemical, and physical signals in Pacific West Coast soils, EMSL aims to fundamentally improve model predictions for land use and energy resource siting. The campaign will use the MONet capability to acquire samples and generate new soil-based metrics to support improved fundamental understanding of landscape response to stressors and acquire high-quality data for human–Earth system modeling. Ultimately, these efforts will contribute to building advanced AI-driven approaches and accurately modeling external impacts on energy systems aligned with Department of Energy and presidential FY 2027 research and development priorities focused on American energy dominance, advanced applied AI for real-world outcomes, and energy resilience and preparedness.
Instruments and resources
Soil cores will be collected and analyzed using the standard MONet collection methods and will be analyzed using MONet workflows. Using EMSL computing resources, the campaign will develop new soil-based metrics.
Contact
If you have questions or are interested in learning more about how you can participate, contact Emily Graham.