Listening to the Soil: How the Andalusian Living Lab Is Building a Real-Time Picture of Soil Health

Across the olive groves of Andalusia, something is quietly changing. Beneath the surface of fifteen experimental sites, a network of sensors now watches the soil around the clock, measuring moisture, temperature, and atmospheric variables. Then it sends a continuous stream of data to the cloud. The Andalusian Living Lab has completed the full installation and activation of an IoT-based soil monitoring system. And the result is something that was, until recently, simply not possible: a near real-time picture of what is happening inside agricultural soils, across multiple sites, simultaneously, to help improve soil health.

How the System Works

Each of the fifteen experimental sites includes two monitoring points. One covers a treated area, where sustainable soil management practices are applied and the other is an untreated control area. This design allows researchers to compare what the soil does with and without intervention. As a result, the evidence produced is grounded in real field conditions rather than controlled laboratory settings.
At each point, sensors sit at two depths. They continuously measure soil volumetric water content and soil temperature. Additional sensors at each site record atmospheric conditions: air temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, vapour pressure deficit, and rainfall. All data travel automatically from dataloggers to the Cloud platform, where researchers can access and analyse them remotely, in near real time.

Why Continuous Data Changes Everything

Traditional soil monitoring relies on periodic field sampling, where a technician visits a site, takes measurements, and returns to the lab. The result is a series of snapshots. They are useful, but incomplete, since a great deal happens in the soil between visits.
Continuous sensor data replaces snapshots with a film. Researchers can track, for example, how soil moisture responds to a rainfall event and follow how temperature fluctuates through a heatwave. Furthermore, they can compare these dynamics between treated and untreated plots. As the Andalusian team explains, this “allows a better understanding of soil dynamics and how soil conditions change over time.” Faster access to information also supports faster, more efficient decision-making at the farm level.

Importantly, the system does not work in isolation, the team combines sensor data with traditional field observations, laboratory analyses, drone surveys, and satellite imagery. Each source adds a layer of understanding that the others cannot provide alone and, together, they build a more complete and reliable picture of soil health.

The Challenges of Monitoring at Scale

Deploying a monitoring network across fifteen sites is challenging. Each site presents its own challenges: terrain, soil type and topography differ from one location to the next. Moreover, questions of site accessibility, power supply, and connectivity add further complexity. In addition, weather conditions during installation created additional difficulties.

The University of Jaén coordinated the sensor strategy and deployment. They were supported by a multidisciplinary consortium that includes agricultural cooperatives, olive sector organisations, technology companies, laboratories, and advisory firms.

Interpreting the data also demands care. Soil behaviour results from the interaction of many factors: climate, soil type, topography, and land management all influence what the sensors record. For this reason, drawing reliable conclusions requires integrating sensor readings with field observations and laboratory analyses. Treating them as a standalone source of truth is not enough.

Soil Health in Olive-Growing Systems

The Andalusian Living Lab focuses on olive cultivation, one of the region’s defining agricultural systems. The challenges facing these soils are significant: erosion, water stress, and biodiversity loss all threaten the health and resilience of olive grove soils. In addition, the long-term effects of intensive management add further pressure.

The monitoring system directly addresses these challenges. The system tracks soil moisture dynamics and temperature behaviour in ways that reveal how different management practices influence soil condition over time. As a result, the data feeds into the development of digital tools, predictive models, and decision-support systems. These tools aim to give farmers better information at the right moment: when to irrigate, how practices affect soil moisture, and where intervention is most needed. Over time, integrating sensor data with satellite and drone observations will help identify trends and refine monitoring strategies across the project.

Evidence for the Future

The installation of this monitoring network marks a concrete step forward in how the LivingSoiLL project builds and uses scientific evidence. By comparing treated and untreated areas across fifteen sites, the Andalusian Living Lab generates the kind of rigorous, field-based data that sustainable soil management policies need to stand on.

The soil beneath Andalusia’s olive groves has supported agriculture for millennia. The sensors now embedded within the soil are helping to ensure it can continue to do so. More efficiently, more sustainably, and with far greater understanding of what the soil itself is trying to say.