Scientists in Ghana are set to “see” beneath the soil surface in real time for the first time, using a new technology expected to improve climate-resilient farming and deepen understanding of how water and nutrients move underground.
The technology, which uses three-dimensional (3D) subsurface imaging to monitor water movement and soil conditions, is being deployed by the Crops Research Institute (CSIR-CRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) under a new climate-smart agriculture project.
The project was unveiled at a stakeholder workshop at Fumesua in the Ashanti Region.
It is expected to help researchers understand how water moves and is stored beneath the soil, how farming practices affect soil health and how those changes influence crop growth and yields.
Funded by UK Research and Innovation through the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the project will run from April 2026 to March 2028.
It is being led by the British Geological Survey (BGS), in partnership with CSIR-CRI, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, and the University of Nottingham.
The Ashanti Regional Director of CSIR-CRI, Professor Maxwell Darko Asante, said the technology represented a major shift from conventional agricultural research, which largely relied on surface observations and isolated sensors.
He said the new system would enable scientists to monitor underground processes continuously without disturbing the soil.
Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT), small electrical currents are passed through the soil to generate dynamic 3D images showing how water moves and is stored underground.
The information would be combined with data from soil sensors, weather stations, laboratory tests, crop observations and greenhouse gas measurements.
“What is new is that we can now, for the first time on this station, see into the soil while the experiment is running,” Prof. Asante said.
He said the technology would enable researchers to move beyond determining whether a farming practice worked to understanding why it worked and the conditions under which it might not.
Prof. Asante stressed that the research must ultimately benefit farmers, saying the findings should reach extension officers, district agriculture officials and rural households in a form they could easily apply.
The Project Leader at CSIR-CRI, Dr Stephen Yeboah, said the initiative would combine modern geophysical science with traditional farming practices.
He cited cover crops such as groundnuts, cowpeas and Mucuna, which farmers had long used to improve soil fertility.
The project would use 3D ERT imaging to determine how such practices affected conditions beneath the soil.
“Integrating these two disciplines gives us an enhanced understanding and an impactful basis for precise recommendations to build farmers’ resilience against climate change,” Dr Yeboah said.
The trials will compare conventional maize cultivation with climate-smart practices, including cover cropping and mulching, at varying levels.
Dr Patricia Amankwah-Yeboah of CIAT said the research would focus on four areas: soil-water dynamics, groundwater recharge, greenhouse gas emissions, and crop resilience and yield.
Researchers would monitor seasonal wetting and drying, water movement beyond crop root zones, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions, as well as the relationship between water availability, crop stress and yields.
The technology will later be demonstrated in farming communities to help farmers understand how different cover crops and crop residues affect soil conditions.
Meanwhile, engineers at KNUST are co-developing a low-cost, open-source resistivity instrument to enable the equipment to be assembled and serviced locally.
The initiative is expected to strengthen Ghana’s capacity for geophysical research and support the wider application of climate-smart farming technologies across West Africa.
FROM KINGSLEY E. HOPE, KUMASI
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