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In contexts of regulatory neglect, it often falls to concerned individuals and community groups to identify and reduce people’s exposure to health-threatening pollutants in urban soils. The Our Soil project, based in Troy, New York (U.S.A.) proposed that engaging people in a “do-it-together” process of scientific inquiry could cultivate both appreciation of soil’s value and urgency to protect people from toxic soil pollution. In this paper, we develop the concept of “soil publics” and use it to critically reflect on how Our Soil used participatory research methods to measure urban soil pollution, exchange and value local knowledge, and cultivate a sense of concern for soil as a public issue. Soil publics come together through collective participatory practices, such as community gardening or, in this case, citizen science. This paper argues that when citizen science is pursued with a focus on producing soil publics, it is not just a means of collecting data about soil; it is part of the process of recognising past harms and transforming human-soil relations. 

Abstract Various methods can be used for soil acidification monitoring, which can be useful towards remediation or preventing environmental degradation. It has been demonstrated that acidification can be made evident over the span of a few years, with proper monitoring. However, a reliance on pH as a main indicator can lead to detection inadequacies, especially where soils are relatively well buffered against acidity and acid deposition is negligible. A technique employing acid-neutralising capacity (ANC) derivation was applied to cultivated and uncultivated Alluvial Meadow soils to find out whether ANC data could prove effective in determining the occurrence and degree of acidification. Sampling and lab work were carried out between 2009 and 2010 on 33 sites under various land uses. Unlike pH, ANC, soil organic matter (SOM), and cation exchange capacity (CEC) decreased significantly. ANC analysis appears to be effective in detecting acidification trends over short periods and, in contrast to previous studies, under ostensibly unremarkable conditions.