ProfessorBudiman Minasny

Prof Minasny's research and contribution to the discipline of soil science has been on discovering the causes and controls of soil distribution over space and time. He created novel methodologies that try to explain the dynamic of soil in the landscape. These include mechanistic models that quantify soil formation processes and empirical models based on modern statistical and machine learning techniques that unearth pattern from data and explain the complexity of soil variation in space and time.

The digital soil mapping research has led to a movement of soil scientists across the world investigating new ways of producing soil information for today's global problems. The digital soil mapping scientific interest led to a global project GlobalSoilMap which aims to produce relevant soil information for solving global issues of food security, water security, energy security, and sustainable response to climate change.

He has also investigated various new technologies including the field near-infrared and portable x-ray fluorescent spectroscopies that enable rapid acquisition of soil information. The research group also demonstrated the use of deep learning methods that significantly improve the prediction of soil properties from large soil spectral databases and incorporating spectral data from multiple instruments.

The soil carbon auditing research provides methods to confidently quantify the amount of carbon in the soil beneficial for auditing purposes to support the national programme of carbon farming initiative. With colleagues around the globe, he accepts the challenge of the 4 per mille program proposed during the Paris COP21 meeting by the French minister of agriculture to increase soil carbon by 0.4% annually.

Professor Minasny'sresearch aligns with the Faculty of Science Research Strengths - Understanding the Universe, Fundamental Laws of Nature, Understanding Our Planet, Understanding Life on Earth, Complex Systems, Biodiversity Conservation, Climate and Environmental Change, Sustainability, Food Security, Healthy Ecosystems, Data and Decisions, Earth and Space Exploration and Technologies, Net Zero Technologies.