Engineering Nature: Soil Ecosystems as Critical Infrastructure

​XPRIZE and the NSF ASCEND Engine in Colorado and Wyoming are exploring a new frontier in how we understand, restore, and ultimately value one of the world’s most important forms of natural infrastructure: soil ecosystems.

​This working session will introduce our emerging vision for accelerating two complementary areas of innovation. The first is a new generation of sensing, measurement, modeling, and evaluation technologies capable of quantifying soil health and ecosystem performance—and translating those outcomes into information that markets, land managers, investors, and other decision-makers can use. The second is the development of advanced restoration technologies and approaches that could make the engineering and recovery of healthy, resilient soil ecosystems a scalable discipline.

​Together, these capabilities could create the foundation for treating functioning ecosystems as measurable and investable infrastructure—supporting agriculture, water resilience, carbon management, biodiversity, and other ecosystem services while opening new pathways for nature-based climate solutions.

​The discussion will bring together experts and partners to help shape the most important technical breakthroughs, measurable outcomes, and competition opportunities that could accelerate this emerging field.