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Searching for soil: Elucidating public interest in soil and soil conservation from 20 years of internet search trends

Booth, Samuel W.

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Abstract

Over the last two decades, soil science research has undergone rapid expansion. Understanding public interest in soil science is vital for evaluating dissemination efforts and situating it in the broader environmental discourse. Analyzing Google Trends search data from 2004 to 2023, this study investigates spikes in search volume index (SVI) for soil‐related searches and potential influences. Significant spikes in SVI between 2019–2020 and 2021–2022 were observed for a number of soil characteristics and soil conservation searches. Similar spikes were observed for possible influences such as the documentary “Kiss the ground,” and SVI related to climate change and carbon sequestration. Notably, SVI for “sustainable development goals” aligned with similar patterns in SVI for “soil health,” indicating a possible link between soil interest and the United Nations’ sustainability goals. This study underscores the seemingly rising interest in soil science, possibly linked with dissemination events, and broader environmental concerns and policies.

Citation

Booth, S. W. (2024). Searching for soil: Elucidating public interest in soil and soil conservation from 20 years of internet search trends. Agricultural & Environmental Letters, 9(1), Article e20133. https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20133

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 3, 2024
Online Publication Date Jun 12, 2024
Publication Date 2024-06
Deposit Date Jul 9, 2024
Publicly Available Date Jul 10, 2024
Journal Agricultural & Environmental Letters
Print ISSN 2471-9625
Electronic ISSN 2471-9625
Publisher Wiley Open Access
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 9
Issue 1
Article Number e20133
DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/ael2.20133
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/36280403
Additional Information Received: 2024-03-02; Accepted: 2024-05-03; Published: 2024-06-12

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Agricultural Env Letters - 2024 - Booth - Searching for soil Elucidating public interest in soil and soil conservation (871 Kb)
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Publisher Licence URL
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
© 2024 The Author(s). Agricultural & Environmental Letters published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.




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