This chart tracks Soil Carbon researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a Soil Carbon-relevant paper that year (active); below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. Soil Carbon is the largest pathway by headcount, sitting closest to mainstream soil science. The top envelope is the number actually publishing in the pathway each year.
The useful pattern is how the active band and the dormant floor compare. Soil Carbon currently stands at 15,849 active in 2025 (39% of members) — more than the other six pathways’ active researchers combined. Younger pathways show a steep active band over a shallow dormant floor — the people who arrived are still there — while older or broader ones carry a much deeper dormant pool of past one-time contributors. Watching the top envelope over the years shows whether the pathway is still recruiting and keeping researchers.
Read the active envelope, not the total height. At yearly resolution a skipped publication year reads as “dormant” and a later paper as a return, so the dormant bands overstate permanent exits. The working figure for Soil Carbon is the top line each year, and its slope over 2021–2025 is the real signal.
What the chart shows today
15,849 active soil carbon researchers in 2025 now outnumber the combined active headcount of the other six pathways on the chart, holding 39% of the tracked field. The trajectory since 2021 shows soil carbon widening its lead rather than plateauing, while dormant counts in adjacent pathways like BECCS and Enhanced Weathering keep climbing faster than their active lines. Zoom into our own directory and the imbalance rhymes: Biochar alone claims 377 of 969 visible players, with Enhanced Weathering at 33 and Biomass Burial at 31. If you are hunting for undercrowded research collaborators or acquisition targets, the mineral and marine pathways are where the academic bench is thinnest and the commercial bench is thinner still.
Chart refreshed from our CDR Company Directory. We publish a data-viz read like this twice a week.