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 soil carbon researchers are still active in 2025, outnumbering the combined active headcount across the other six pathways on this chart. That single pathway now accounts for 39% of the census, a share that has held remarkably flat even as dormancy rates climbed elsewhere. Biochar dominates the directory-side view too, with 377 of the 969 visible orgs clustered there, versus just 33 in enhanced weathering and 31 in biomass burial. The so-what: if you are recruiting soil carbon talent, the labor pool is deep and still growing; if you are in enhanced weathering, every active researcher is roughly 480x more scarce and should be treated accordingly.
Chart refreshed from our CDR Company Directory. We publish a data-viz read like this twice a week.