Water and nutrients microtopography redistribution is marked by higher fractional vegetation cover at lower position additionally enhanced by preferential grazing at hilltop positions (personal observation)   

Researchers from NIEER recently visited the site to further investigate the role of soil formation processes and vegetation properties on permafrost recovery trajectories.  

In order to set up a success metrics, scale up the project, and avoid the return of degradation pathways, mathematical modelling, already very well developed by the Russian team, will be used.  

The novelty of proposed further model development is, firstly, in solving of the radiation and heat balance equation at the soil surface which allows to numerically estimate the effect of plant architecture on the surface temperature and, secondly, on taking into account the properties of the newly forming organic layer of the soil.  

For the latter soil cores were taken and sent for the X-ray computer tomography (CT) at the Dokuchaev Soil Institute, Moscow.  

Not only the CT allows to trace the soil pore space and aggregate formation, as well as soil-root interaction, but it also gives a direct interpretation of how exactly the soil thermal properties change when the roots the soil organisms are involved.  

The next step for the researchers will be to perform pore-scale numerical simulations of heat transfer using the obtained X-ray CT images.