From the reports, websites and information on the other ECCT pages solutions to ameliorate or reverse the effects of climate change that relate to terramechanics include:
• The move to vehicles powered from renewable energy; this includes using the vehicle batteries to store electrical energy which can be fed back into the grid if required (see, for example, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/48530488/the-solar-power-charged-electric-cars-making-money ) - this may be very relevant to off road vehicles and there may be considerable transferable technology from planetary rover research. This should generate considerable interest in terramechanics in electriv powered drivelines and their control.
• Increased afforestation and reforestation: this will include forestry systems that maximize carbon capture, maintain biodiversity, minimise soil erosion and soil damage, and improve flood control.
• Utility vehicles: increased weather uncertainty and the increased occurrence of flooding and terrain and infrastructure damage will require development on specialist manned and autonomous vehicles for disaster relief; the demand, and economic importance, for smart service vehicles to service and install land and sea renewable energy installations, should increase.
• UK agriculture is expected to adapt in a number of ways, including: electrically powered, generally smaller, autonomous field machinery; precision cultivation techniques, controlled traffic farming (CTF), precision weed control; the use of winter legume cover crops, strip cultivation methods, inter-row planting, etc.; the potential to increase photosynthesis levels from agricultural cropping and trees/forestry. in-situ and on-machinery sensors to monitor and control performance and management decisions; soil management for carbon storage and sequestration; reduced soil erosion with the loss of soil C. Some of this is expected to be driven by dietary change and increased awareness of the needs of biodiversity.
• Rice growing systems such as the SRI (system of rice intensification) that reduce the quantities of fresh water used and offers opportunities for precision mechanization, reduced chemical inputs and improved sustainable soil management will require supporting terramechanics research.
• There are even proposals in the UK CCC recommendations for peatland restoration – this could provide some terramechanics challenges. [Much of the UK peatland is around, and even below, sea level - the risk of carbon peatland erosion to the sea is high as sea levels rise].
The Global Tree Restoration Potential
This article was published in Science in July 2019 (Jean-Francois Bastin1, Yelena Finegold, Claude Garcia, Danilo Mollicone, Marcelo Rezende, Devin Routh, Constantin M. Zohner, Thomas W. Crowther. The global tree restoration potential. http://science.sciencemag.org/ on August 4, 2019)
For readers with access, it can be found at:
The global tree restoration potential
There is a review with futher links at the Guardian website:
Tree planting 'has mind-blowing potential' to tackle climate crisis
It is proposed in the article that planting billions of trees across the world is a feasible and relatively cheap way to tackle the climate crisis. The article describes a rigorous methodologoy for calculating how many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas. The analysis found there are 1.7bn hectares of treeless land on which 1.2tn native tree saplings would naturally grow, about 11% of all land and equivalent to the size of the US and China combined. Tropical areas could have 100% tree cover, while others would be more sparsely covered, meaning that on average about half the area would be under tree canopy. The article provides supporting maps which are also provided in the guardian review; the Guardiardian review feeds through to other on-line links which may be found useful, including how many trees there are estimated to be on the planet.
Soil
Soil is the main terrain type that we deal with in terramechanics and although historically our main engineering concern has been the engineering properties of soil strength, mechanical properties, the effect of moisture – particularly those properties that affect vehicle mobility, soil cutting and manipulation – more recent concerns with climate change are highlighting other properties and functions of soil: ecological services, its ability to absorb and store carbon, its ability to resist erosion and its ability, linked to surface vegetation, to hold water for reducing and managing flooding, and its ability to grow food in an environmentally sustainable way. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just brought out a report (8.8.19), ” IPCC Special Report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land Management, Food Security, and Greenhouse gas fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems Summary for Policymakers Approved Draft”. Copies of the draft report, including a "Summary for Policymakers", chapters, data and supporting information, is available at:
A number of news outlets have summarized the report findings, for example, The Guardian:
Climate crisis reducing land's ability to sustain humanity, says IPCC