Bulletin of the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) | June 2011

IUSS Bulletin

118

IUSS BULLETIN 1182

International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS)The IUSS Bulletin is the official Newsletter of the International Union of Soil Sciences. It is freely distributed through the IUSS website. All contributions are welcome and should be send to the editor.

Editor Alfred HarteminkISRIC – World Soil InformationP.O. Box 353 6700 AJ WageningenThe NetherlandsPhone +31 (0) 317 483 722 E-mail: alfred.hartemink@wur.nl

New Address per September 2011:University of WisconsinDepartment of Soil Science263 Soils Building1525 Observatory DriveMadison, WI 53706-1299USAE-mail: hartemink@wisc.edu

Secretary General Alfred Hartemink alfred.hartemink@wur.nl (until August 2011)

Deputy SG Alex McBratney Alex.McBratney@sydney.edu.auPresident Jae Yang yangjay@kangwon.ac.krVice President Kye-Hoon John Kim johnkim@uos.ac.krTreasurer Jim Gauld Jim.Gauld@hutton.ac.uk

Division 1 Karl Stahr kstahr@uni-hohenheim.deDivision 2 Martin Gerzabek martin.gerzabek@boku.ac.atDivision 3 Rainer Horn rhorn@soils.uni-kiel.deDivision 4 Charles Rice cwrice@ksu.edu

Budgets Stephen Nortcliff iuss@reading.ac.ukAwards Mary-Beth Kirkham mbk@ksu.eduStatutes Don Sparks dlsparks@udel.eduPresidential elections Roger Swift deannravs@uqg.uq.edu.au

ISSN 0374-0447

Copyright IUSS, PO Box 353, 6700 AJ, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Graphic Design: Daniël Loos, www.bureaucontrapunt.nl

JUNE 2011 3

Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Some ideas on the International Union of Soil Sciencesby Alfred Hartemink and Alex McBratney. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

From the National Soil Science Societies:Soil Science Society of America – Today and tomorrow

by Ellen Bergfeld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

ArticlesCharles Darwin and the discovery of bioturbation in the year 1837

by Hans-Peter Blume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10The Action “Soil of the Year” in Germany

by Monika Frielinghaus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

IUSS Alerts November 2010 – April 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Five questions to a soil scientist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Five questions to Jon Chorover (USA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Five questions to Dani Or (Switzerland) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Five questions to Rosa Poch (Spain) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Five questions to Edward Landa (USA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Five questions to Teodoro Miano (Italy) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Five questions to Reinhold Jahn (Germany) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Report from IUSS Working GroupsWorld Reference Base for Soil Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Universal Soil Classification System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Favourite soil science books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Paul Hallett (UK) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Victor Asio (Philippines) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Miroslav Kutilek (Czech republic) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Rudi Dudal (Belgium) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33Roland Buresh (Philippines) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

In Memoriam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37David Jenkinson (UK) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Armand van Wambeke (USA). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Orno Semmel (Germany). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Reports of meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

New publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

IUSS Honorary members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Contents

In January 2011 I officially took over the IUSS Sec-retary General position from Stephen Nortcliff. Inthis editorial I would like to look back a little andmake a few personal notes; in the next section wewill discuss some of the ideas and future plan forthe IUSS.

I arrived at ISRIC in Wageningen (The Netherlands) inJanuary 1999 after a decade of soil research in sev-eral tropical countries. Being slightly bibliophilic Isoon became friends with Hans van Baren who wasthe Book Review Editor of the IUSS Bulletin and theDeputy Secretary General. Through Hans I developeda keen interest in the IUSS and when I proposed in2001 that the IUSS should start a website Hans wasimmediately supportive and arranged for somefunds. IUSS Bulletin 99 produced by Winfried Blumwas the first IUSS Bulletin to be placed on the website(not as a PDF but all sections as separate HTMLs). TheIUSS website rapidly expanded and grew to over140,000 visitors per year. It is an essential element inthe communication with our global membership andfor anyone interested in the global union of soil sci-entists.

Hans van Baren mentioned in early 2002 that hewould like to step down as Deputy Secretary Generaland he and Wim Sombroek (Secretary General from1978 to 1990) asked whether I was interested in tak-ing over the position. At the 17th World Congress ofSoil Science in Bangkok the IUSS council elected meto that position and at the same time Stephen Nort-cliff was elected Secretary General. Stephen hadbeen my PhD co-supervisor so we knew each otherwell when we started in 2002. In the past eight yearsStephen and I have worked as a team effectively andcollegially. Stephen has greatly contributed to themany advances that the union has made - organisa-tionally, financially and scientifically. Thank youStephen for all your hard work for the union and forthe many years of friendship. The IUSS can be ex-tremely pleased that Stephen has agreed to becomethe Budget and Finance Committee chair so will re-main active in the IUSS. This is good for our corpo-rate memory.

In 2008, I had informed the IUSS council that I had nolonger the desire to stay on as deputy after 2010. Atthe same time, Alex McBratney of the University ofSydney (Australia) and I worked out a proposal to so-licit for the vacant Secretary General and Deputy po-sitions. We have worked together on many differentglobal projects and publications since 2000 and pre-sented our interest to the council at the World Con-gress of Soil Science in Brisbane. In the next sectionwe will present some of our ideas.

Now a bit on this IUSS Bulletin. This is the 16th IUSSBulletin that I have compiled and edited (for compar-ison, Prof. F.A. van Baren – Secretary General from1950 to 1975 produced 44 Bulletins). In the last 16Bulletins there has been a section in which some ofour members have been put in the spotlight throughthe „Five Questions to a Soil Scientist“ and throughsection on „Favourite Soil Science Books“. We havealso had several short articles on specialised topicsof interest to the wider soil science community andof course many reports of many meetings, book re-views and other contributions of the global soil sci-ence community. The aim of all that is to inform theglobal membership but also to give the IUSS a faceand a podium for the exchange of professional viewsand personal information. The IUSS an union of na-tional societies and from now on we will give nationalsocieties the opportunity of discussing how it attractsand engages its members and other noteworthy ac-tivities. In this bulletin we start off this series with anarticle by Ellen Bergfeld of the Soil Science Society ofAmerica who discusses some of their activities. Ineach Bulletin a national society will be able to shareits ideas and it is hoped to be inspirational for othersocieties.One of the activities on our work slate is to producea Strategic Plan for the IUSS. We hope to have a draftfor consideration and feed-back by the national soci-eties and divisions, commissions and working groupsby the mid-term meeting in the Republic of Korea inJune 2012.

I have taken up a position in the Department of SoilScience at the University of Wisconsin, Madison

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Editorial

(USA) and will start there in September 2011. Thisrelocation of myself and some IUSS systems willcause some disruption for which I apologise in ad-vance. I will try to minimise that as much as possi-ble. Finally, on behalf of the IUSS I wish to thank ISRICfor hosting the ISSS/IUSS Secretary General andDeputy Secretary General for the past 45 years. Theinstitute has always been very supportive of thework and has made many substantial contributionsto the running of the IUSS. On behalf of the globalsoil science community I thank ISRIC for all its sup-port to the IUSS, and look forward to its ongoingsupport.

Alfred HarteminkSecretary General

International Union of Soil SciencesMay 2011

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When the vacancies for the IUSS Secretary General andDeputy Secretary General were advertised we wrote astatement of interest. It was distributed at the IUSSCouncil meetings. We send in our statement as a teamas we think that these positions are best filled by twopeople that work well together. Here a little sum-up ofour joint activities of the past decade: We have formu-lated at the second IUSS global workshop on Digital SoilMapping in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (July 2006), the ideaof a new digital soil properties map of the world. It leadto the GlobalSoilMap.net project which has received18 million US$ funding from the Bill & Melinda Gatesfoundation. It is a global IUSS project that involves soilscience centres in each of the continents and many soilscientists. We are both Editors-in-Chief of Geoderma(Alex since 1995, Alfred since 2006) and initiated andedited the book series Progress in Soil Science. We haveedited the book Digital Soil Mapping with Limited Data(2008) and the over 1,600 pages Major Reference WorkSoil Science, published by Earthscan (2009). Here wepresent an abridged version of our statement of inter-est to share we the global soil science community:

The IUSS should primarily serve and cement theglobal soil science community, and promote soil sci-ence and all its activities. This should be done by: • enhancing the management of the organization, • stimulating all soil science initiatives inside and

outside the IUSS, and • improving communication with other scientific dis-

ciplines and the general public.

We should have, at any given time, a clear idea of ourpriority projects for enhancing the functioning and im-pact of the IUSS. Some of these will be existing proj-ects, and some will be yet to start. Some will berelatively achievable within a short time-frame, andsome will address issues that are a little more in-tractable. All IUSS members should have enough infor-mation about these projects to be able to contributeideas and track their progress. For this reason, we in-tend to develop a Work Slate of around ten priorityprojects. It is a list of projects, linked to our yet-to-be-developed Strategic Plan, which need particular atten-tion and includes those issues raised as most urgent.

We shall update the Work Slate frequently on the IUSSwebsite and encourage members to submit theirthoughts and comments.

In order to achieve the IUSS mission the work slatefor the next four-year period includes: • Creation of an IUSS Strategic Plan for the next eight

years with agreed mission, goals, performance indi-cators, and external evaluations

• Speeding -up and improved transparency of decisionmaking within the organization using a variety ofstrategies, e.g. online voting for positions, councilteleconferencing and voting electronically wheneverneeded

• Improved communication via the IUSS website, e.g.RSS feed, content management system (allowingpassword users to add content) making the websitemore interactive

• Comparison of cost models and management struc-tures of other (geo)unions

• Refresh current division and commission structures• Continue to increase the soil science profile by plug-

ging the IUSS and soil science into the wider scien-tific arena (e.g. Millennium Devlopments Goals,UNEP-GEO, World Bank, ICSU Geo-unions etc.)

• Publish a series of popular brochures for the generalpublic on current themes in soil science

• Develop strategies for attracting more young peopleand women into the IUSS community

There are a large number of activities and responsibil-ities for the IUSS Secretary General and the Deputy,these include: • day- to-day management and administration of IUSS

including close communication with IUSS officers, na-tional member societies and representatives, and in-dividual members

• representation of IUSS at meetings of national mem-ber societies, the International Council of Science(ICSU), and other organizations such as the FAO, UN-ESCO;

• conducting elections of division and commission of-ficers; working with the IUSS Treasurer and Chair ofthe Budget and Finance Committee to ensure the col-lection of dues and certification of members;

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Some ideas on the International Union of Soil Sciences

• with the President, members of the Bureau and withother IUSS officers, prepare and disseminate theagenda, reports, and minutes for Executive Commit-tee and Council meetings;

• publish the IUSS Bulletin;• maintenance of the IUSS website; and dissemination

of further information about IUSS, e.g., IUSS Alerts.Since we have worked on several projects and activi-ties together for the past 10 years we clearly envisionsharing this workload.

We realise there is a large task ahead positioning theIUSS and to enhance our scientific discipline. We lookforward working with all of you and are open to all yoursuggestions to make the IUSS an effective global unionof soil siences!

Alfred HarteminkAlex McBratney May 2011

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From the National Soil Science Societies:

Soil Science Society of America: Today and Tomorrow

by Ellen Bergfeld

I was asked to write a short column on how the SoilScience Society of America (SSSA) has been workingto attract and engage (retain) members. While SSSAhas undergone a fair amount of change in the pastdecade plus, my perspectives encompass the pasteight years and from all indications, we will con-tinue to accelerate in terms of our continued evo-lution in the coming years.

StructureSSSA has desired an independent image from thatof the American Society of Agronomy and the CropScience Society of America for decades. From astructural standpoint, within the past 5 years thiswas achieved through the creation of a support or-ganization, the Alliance of Crop, Soil and Environ-mental Science Societies (ACSESS) which providesthe management and staff for SSSA and other sci-entific organizations. This restructuring also al-lowed us to streamline the SSSA Board and hone ourprogrammatic focus.

Programs and ServicesThe Soil Science Society of America has prioritizedmember value throughout the last three strategicplans/updates, spanning nearly 8 years. Overarch-ing goals include: • Expand and enhance services provided to the in-

creasingly diverse range of soil scientists in publicand private sectors who will benefit from mem-bership in SSSA,

• Foster the advancement of soil science and the in-ternational exchange of ideas and knowledge ofsoils by disseminating, through publications, pro-fessional meetings and other communication andoutreach efforts, the contributions and applica-tions of fundamental and applied soil science re-search,

• Participate in relevant public policy issues by pro-viding science based, relevant and timely input fordecision-making, and

• Promote relationships, interactions, partnering,and institutionalization of soil science.

While these are lofty goals and we have plenty ofroom to continue to advance, there are a few areaswhere we are making progress and which deemmentioning. Within the Society, there have traditionally been nu-merous opportunities for members to become in-volved and hone their leadership skills. SSSA hasmore than 100 committees with nearly 600 SSSAmembers participating, including the governingboard, certification, publishing, membership, meet-ings, science policy and the like. Committees andtask forces are now provided defined charges aswell as timeframes for engagement and goal com-pletion so that our volunteer members are able toprovide expertise for a given, defined period. As weprioritize new areas of opportunity, such as K-12 ed-ucation, committees increasingly include bothmembers and non-members (K-12 teachers) as out-side expertise. This dynamic approach to address-ing the goals within the larger context of what isneeded in the K-12 teaching community allows usto make more rapid and beneficial advances thanwhat had been possible working on our own. We continue to evaluate opportunities to enhanceour collaboration with other organizations to lever-age our message about the fundamental impor-tance of soil. Our participation and collaborationwith Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural His-tory to develop DigIT! The Secrets of Soil exhibitprovided an excellent opportunity to reach millionsof adults and children.Through our science policy office, SSSA strives to ed-ucate policymakers and staff within U.S. federal de-partments and agencies to interject science intopolicy and positively influence federal funding for, and

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legislation impacting, soil science. Through our grass-roots program we work closely with the more than6,000 constituent member scientists as ultimately thesuccess of our efforts and future federal funding ofour sciences depend on the critical relationships de-veloped with Congressional delegations.In 2010, SSSA determined that we weren’t ade-quately addressing the needs and values of ourgraduate students and early career members. Togain a more comprehensive understanding of thisvoid, we held a graduate student and early careersummit last summer. Important outcomes includedthe creation of an early career board position, agrad student/early career advisory committee andadditional K-12 activities including book projects,participation in outreach activities, and dissemina-tion of teacher resources. An additional outcomewas a greater realization that the division structureof the society was viewed as inflexible, outdatedand unwelcoming to many prospective members. Areorganization task force was subsequently ap-pointed and is in process of executing their chargeof examining the society structure to maximize ap-peal and engagement. On the publishing front, SSSA historically publishedprimarily with our members in mind; whereas wenow publish with the broader educational contextin mind—more audiences across a wider range ofages, education levels, and areas of interest thatmay intersect with soil, as well as more formats andpotential for collaborations. All of our educationaloutreach activities spring from our core mission: toadvance soils as fundamental to life.SSSA has also invested in the profession throughpromotion of both certification and licensing pro-grams and through developing performance objec-tives, national exams and recognizing state licensingand certification processes. These activities havedefined the practice of soil science thus providing amore comprehensive understanding of what type ofwork soil scientists perform as well as assurances ofthe competency of soils practitioners.

Looking Ahead Our 2011 foci include science communications, sci-ence policy, and science education. With the celebra-tion of the 75th anniversary of SSSA this year, we aremaking a concentrated effort to focus outwardly, toincrease public awareness of soils and the grand chal-lenges facing the soil science disciplines. We need toexpand the perception and knowledge of the generalpublic about the fundamental role of soil and soil sci-

ence in our everyday lives and general welfare. We will continue to face the future challenge of sig-nificantly expanding our image to include a broadspectrum of interests in soils, such that SSSA is at-tractive to a much larger audience and is valued bya much more diverse cadre of potential members.SSSA is looking forward to the next 75+ years in itshistory, as the importance of the soil ecosystemmoves to the forefront of discussions about climatechange, food security, water quantity and quality,contamination, and human health. Anniversary cel-ebrations will culminate at the 2011 Annual Meet-ings, 16–19 Oct. 2011 in San Antonio, TX. For more information on the Annual Meetings, visitwww.acsmeetings.org. Additionally, to celebrate itsanniversary, SSSAJ will publish historical perspec-tives throughout 2011.

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Charles Darwin and the discovery of bioturbation in the year 1837by Hans-Peter BlumeProfessor Emeritus, 24098 Kiel University, Germanyhblume@soils.uni-kiel.de

This is a shortened version of a paper which appeared in

Annals of Agrarian Science , Vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 69-74

When in autumn 1836 Charles Robert Darwin(1809-1882) returned to England from his great fiveyears lasting expedition aboard the Beagle roundthe world, the Geological Society of London waitedfor his report on his impressions and discoveries asan explorer. On the 1st of November, 1837, he gaveinstead of the expected information the lecture Onthe Formation of Mould, talking about the effectsof earthworms on the soil under meadows in MaerHall, Staffordshire (Darwin 1838). In the followingDarwin´s observations and their importance for soilscience will be presented.Darwin had learnt from Josia Wedgwood (1769-1843), his uncle and later on his father-in-law fromMaer Hall that in several cases gravel disappearedsome years later which had been deposited on thesoil surface (Darwin 1838). By digging the soil toseveral cm depth, the gravels were found again. Thefarmers believed that they had sunk in. Darwin

found that The top three inches of the soil, themould, were completely free of gravels, followed bya gravel layer. Below the gravels he found earth-worms. On the soil surface he saw earthworm ex-crements among the blades of grass. ThereforeDarwin assumed that the upper 3 inches (7.5 cm),respectively the mould, had been completely swal-lowed by the earthworms during the last 15 yearsand had been excreted and deposited again on thesoil surface. He was confirmed in his results in twoother sites. He suggested to better call this loose,crumby, gravel- and stone-free vegetable mould ofmeadows as animal mould, because it had com-pletely passed the animals’ intestinal canals. Be-cause of that idea Darwin had discovered thebioturbation by earthworm activity.Darwin’s last published book The formation of veg-etable mould through the action of worms of the year1881 also deals with bioturbation. It describes that he1843 again had studied the three sites which he al-ready had investigated before in the year 1837. Thenhe found a depth increase of the pebble layer. Inves-tigating seven other sites he found an average annualdepth increase of the pebbles of 4.8 mm. From theseresults he derived an average annual transfer of 1.8 -4.5 kg soil m-2 by earthworm activity (Tab. 1).

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animals ecotop amount

earthworms meadows (UK) [Darwin 1881] 1.8 – 4.5

earthworms gardens (Central Europe) 1.0 – 2.5

earthworms forests (USA) 1.8

earthworms tropics 3.6 - 27

ants forests (Central Europe) 3.1

ants steppes 3.1

ants moist areas (USA) 2.0

ground squirrels, susliks steppes (Russia) 1.8

prairie dogs prairies 7.0

termites savanna 1.2

lugworms mud flats (Europe) [Cadeé 1976] 60 - 300

Tab. 1: Bioturbation in soils by animals;in kg/m-2 a-1 (after Darwin, Cadeé;Blume et al. 2002: Tab. 3.2-14-7)

The importance of the discovery for contemporary soil scientistsIn the year 1862 the Swedish quarternary geologistand pedologist Hampus von Post (1822-1911) wasthe first to describe, investigate and classify theforms of humus Mylla (engl. mull), Torf (peat) aswell as Dy (dy or peat mud) and Gyttja (gyttja or eu-trophic mud). In his paper Studier öfverNutidensko-progenajordbildningar (Studies about coprogenicsoil formation 1862) he showed with observationsin the field and with the microscope similar to Dar-win that many top horizons of soils consist ofcrumby coprogenic aggregates.

In the years 1870/80 the Danish forest soil scientistPeter E. Müller (1840-1926) investigated forest soils,in fact mainly their humus forms under beechforests (Müller 1879; 1887): Loamy soils from tillshowed a 20 - > 60 cm thick loose and humose top-soil under freshly fallen beech litter. In a moist con-dition its colour changed with the depth fromblack-brown to grey-brown. The humus contentscon-tinuously decreased from 7 to 1%. The follow-

ing subsoil was denser and free of humus. The top-soil mostly had a lower clay content than the subsoilwhich (correct from actual view) was interpreted asa consequence of a clay migration from the topsoilto the subsoil. He called the form of the humus ofsuch loamy soils (today Luvisols) Bøgemuld (beechmull). Sandy soils from gravel sands showed ahumus layer with more than 30 % humus which wasblack-brown and relatively dense. With a sharp tran-sition a humus-free light-grey sand followed, whichwas classified Blysandet (lead sand). This layer hada thickness of 1- >20 cm and then changed into adark-brown to red-brown layer which contained 1-5% humus. In a loose condition it was called Røtjord(red earth), in a solid condition Rødjordslag (ironpan or ortstein). Beneath a light sand to loamy sandfollowed. The form of humus of these sandy soilswas called Bøgemor (beechmor or duff mull). Fromtoday´s view the described soil was a Podzol (Müller(1879) subdivided von Post’s Mylla (Post 1862) intomuld and mor.Inspired by Darwin´s (1838) and von Post´s (1862)research, Müller also investigated the animals of thedescribed soils as well as their tracks in the field and

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under the microscope. In the soil of the humus formBøgemuld he found earthworms (Lumbricus ter-restris and L. rubellus) as well as their tubes in thetopsoil and subsoil, and their excrements on the soilsurface. Furthermore, he found moles. Therefore heconcluded that the humus enriched topsoil wasloosened and eaten by earthworms and depositedas excrements or crumbs on the soil surface. So forhim the humus form Bøgemuld was a consequenceof litter decomposition, bioturbation and crumblingby earthworms. In contrast he did not find earth-worms or moles or even their marks in the soil ofthe humus form Bøgemor. He only found someenchytraeids, larva of insects and land crustaceans(perhaps mites). There was no bioturbation. The Russian soil scientist Vasilij V. Dokuchaev (1846-1903) wrote in his thesis Russian Chernozem (1883)about Darwin’s book (1881), but he did not recog-nize the importance of earthworms and other soilorganisms for the formation of Chernozems. He pre-ferred the hypothesis that chernozem is loess per-meated by vegetal humus by water percolationthrough the soil. But 1892 he changed his mind andaccepted bioturbation as a soil forming process. Heincluded soil organisms in his equation of soil for-mation (Dokuchaev 1899): soil = f(cl, o, p) trin which cl is regional climate, o vegetation and an-imals, p the “geologic substratum”, and tr relativeage (youthfulness, maturity, and senility).

The actual importance of the discoveryToday bioturbation by soil organisms is a generallyaccepted process of soil formation (Blume et al.2002: chapter 8.2.7 Turbations). In the steppe areasof Eurasia earthworms as geophages together withburrowing animals (susliks, hamsters, mice) deeplymixed loamy and silty soils, and create Chernozemswith partly >1 m thick Ah-horizons (animal moulds).In the prairies of North America earthworms andground squirrels do a similar work. Mainly under de-ciduous woods of the European temperate zoneearthworms together with moles, cockchafers, anddung beetles as shovel digger live producing 10-30cm thick, crumby, humose Ah horizons by decom-posing, loosening and mixing the soils [4]. In sandysoils ants as mouth digger can work in a similar way(Tab. 1).In silty Tidali-salic Fluvisols of the North Sea coasts

of the Wadden Sea mainly the lugworms (Arenicolamarina) as geophages permanently mix with highintensity the upper 15 to 25 cm of the soils (Tab. 1).They form a loose top soil above a layer of coarsesand and shell of mussels (Cadeé 1976) similar tothe gravel layer of Darwin (1838). In African and Australian savanna areas and desertsmainly termites as mouth digger dig several meterdeep, to transport moist fine soil material for build-ing mounds upon the soil surface as well as for sub-surface galleries and chambers (Holt &Lapage2000). Often they have formed thick, loose, gravel-and stone-free soils above a buried gravelly andstony layer. Other soils are formed by cryorturbation or pelotur-bation. Cryosols are formed in permafrost areas.After the melting period in summer the soils freezeagain from the surface, and the underlying soilwhich is water-saturated above the permanentlyfrozen subsoil gets under pressure and is trans-ported upwards as a wet and mixed paste. In thisprocess gravels and stones are transported to thesurface where they form stone circles or on slopesstone stripes (Blume et al. 1997).In Vertisols similar processes occur. During the dryseasons cracks are formed by shrinking which canbe several m deep and several cm wide. They arefilled by the wind with very small clay aggregateswhich were formed at the soil surface by selfmulching. This process depends on dew falling atthe end night which alternates with drying periodsat noon (Yaalon & Kalmar 1978). Deep-founded re-moisturing during the rainy season leads to soilswelling. The dry cracks filled with topsoil producea swelling pressure upwards. A soil mixture occurswhich creates deep-founded Vertisols. At the soilsurface circular sinks appear, at the slopes stripe-like sinks which appear as a gilgai relief (Hallsworthet al. 1955). We call this peloturbation (Greek pelos= clay). Peloturbationoccurs gravels (particles ofrocks or hard iron and carbonate concretions) moveupwards. Peloturbation even occurs in the clayrichsoils of the European temperate zone. There areVertic Cambisols with distinct slicken sides in thesubsoil (German: Pelosole) and a clay-impoverishedtopsoil (Blume et al. 2002).I assume that swelling and shrinking processes notonly influence the North German clay soils, but also– with a reduced effect the loamy Luvisols, whichcauses a movement of gravels and stones to the soilsurface. So I declare that I under pasture did notfind the loamy soils of till described by Darwin with

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a stone-free animal-mould above a gravelly andstony-layer.As a result I can emphasize that bioturbation causesthe migration of fine soil to the soil surface and theoccurrance of gravelly and stony layers below. Incontrast, cryoturbation and peloturbation lead toan active movement of gravels and stones to the soilsurface.

ReferencesBlume, H.-P., Beyer, L., Bölter, M., Erlenkeuser, H.,

Kalk, E., Kneesch, S., Pfisterer, U., Schneider, D.(1997): Pedogenic zonation in soils of thesouthern circum-polar region. Adv. in GeoEcol-ogy 30: 69-90

Blume, H.-P. Bruemmer, G , Schwertmann, U.,Horn, R., Kögel-Knabner, I., Stahr , K. and oth-ers (2002): Scheffer/Schachtschabel -Lehrbuch der Bodenkunde (textbook of soil sci-ence); 15. ed. SpektrumAkadem V., Heidelberg

Cadeé, G.C. (1976): Sediment reworking by Areni-cola marina (lugworm) on tidal flats in theDutch Wadden Sea. Neth. J. Sea Res. 10: 440-460

Darwin, C. (1838): On the formation of mould.Transaction of the Geological Society of Lon-don, 2. Serv., Vol. V., p. 505 – 509.

Darwin, C. (1881): The formation of vegetablemould, through the action of worms, with ob-servations on their habits. J. Murray, London.

Dokuchaev, V.V. (1883): Russkiichernozem. Otch-etVol’nomuekonom. ovu (The Russian Cher-nozem. A Report to the Free EconomicsSociety). St. Petersburg

Dokuchaev, V.V. (1892):Nasistepiprezde I teper(Our steps, then and now). In V.V. Dokuchaev:Socinenija, Vol. 6 Moskva 1951, p. 109-204.

Dokuchaev, V.V. (1899): DokladZavkavkazskomusta-tisticheskomukomitetuobozenkezemel’voobis-che I Zakavkazja v osobennosti.Pochvennyegorizontal’nye I vertikal’nyezony(Report to the Committee of Statistics aboutsoil evaluation in general and in particular.Trans-Caucasia). Tbilisi. In Dokuchaev, V.V.:Sochineija vol. 6: 379-397. Moskva 1951.

Hallworth, E.G., Robertson, G., Gibbons, F.R.(1955): Studies in pedogenesis in New SouthWales. VII The gilgai soils. J. Soil Sci. 6: 1-31.

Holt, J.A., Lapage, M. (2000): Termites and soilproperties; chapter 18 in T. Abe, D.E. Bignell,,M. Higashi (eds.): Termites: evolution, sociality,symbiosis, ecology. Kluver, Dordrecht

Müller, P. E. (1879): Studier over Skovjord, som-BidragtilSkovdyrkningensTeori. Om Bøgemul-dogBøgemorpaa Sand ogLer (Studies aboutforest soils, a contribution about the theory offorest use. About beech mull and beech mor onsand and loam). Tidsskrift for Skovbrug, 3: 1-124.

Müller, P. E., with C.F.A. Tuxen (1887): Studienüberdie natürlichenHumusformen und derenEin-wirkung auf Vegetation und Boden (Studiesabout natural forms of humus and their influ-ence upon soil and vegetation). J. Springer,Berlin.

Post, H. v. (1862): Studier öfverNutidenskoproge-najordbildningar, Gyttje, Dy, TorfochMylla. Kgl..SvenskaVetesnk.- Akad. Handl. N. F. Bd. IV, 1-59, Stockholm.

Yaalon, D.H., Kalmar, D. (1978): Dynamics of crack-ing and swelling clay soils: displacement ofskeletal grains, optimum depth of slickensides,and rate of intra-pedonicturbation. Earth Sur-face Processes and Landforms 3: 31–42.

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The Action ‘Soil of the Year ’ in Germanyby Monika Frielinghausfrielinghaus@zalf.de

“There is no matter in nature that is more relevant and more worthy to contemplate as soil”

This sentence was already formed in1862 by Fred-eric Albert Fallou and it has not lost its significanceuntil today. Soils are threatened in their multi-functionality by pollutants and chemical sub-stances, climate change, sealing and erosion whichare caused by any wrong or mal-adapted soil use.Any human activity uses soil in a direct or indirectway. Therefore, everybody is a “soil stakeholder”and has to take over responsibility. However, with-out the awareness how valuable soils are, soil con-servation can not be successful. This insight, whichmeans the understanding of soils and their prob-lems, has to be build by education and knowledgetransfer. This was the background for members ofthe German Soil Science Society and the FederalSoil Association of Germany to initiate the action“Soil of the year” in 2004.

The start of the ActionA curator ship had prepared a concept for the startand a well documented selection about the first sub-mitted nominated Chernozem, Soil of the Year 2005. The Soil of the year 2006 was the Albic Luvisol(“Fahlerde”), followed by the Podzol (“Podsol”)(2007), the Cambisol/ Arenosol („Braunerde“)(2008), the Calcareous Marsh („Kalkmarsch“) (2009),the UrbicAnthrosols/ Technosols („Stadtböden“)(2010) and the Vega – Fluvic Cambisol or Fluvisol(“BraunerAuenboden”) (2011)The special target Groups for the action were thecomplete community like• nursery schools,• schools, universities,• research institutes,• all soil experts and societies• all kind of medias,

• museums,• land owners in agriculture, forestry, horticulture,• landscape architects and planning agencies, • nature and water conservators,• all responsible experts in offices, who support and

force politicians to make intelligent decisions andhelp to apply them,

• all of citizen in towns and rural areas.In the planning phase members of the curator shiplearned the necessity of a didactic specification forthe soil understanding and the action.The modern environmental communication under-line the preference of activities against long term,persistent or inveterate processes due to soilchange and soil degradation. These processes arerunning low visible and often without dramatic.This kind of communication needs knowledgeabout the complexity of soil problems with all dif-ferent aspects to start an expert feeling, mental at-titude for regarding emotions, own moral conceptsand action readiness, real behaviour to react ineveryday situation. These didactic specific has toconsider in every soil action.

Organization of the ‘Action Soil of the Year ’The initiators of the action are members of the Ger-man Soil Society (DBG) and the German Federal As-sociation for Soil (BVB), supported by the FederalEnvironment Agency (UBA) and the German Scien-tific-technical Association for Environmental Reme-diation and Redevelopment (ITVA). The curator shipprovide continuous the evaluation and selection ofthe proposals, the preparation and circulation of ma-terials (posters, flyers, CD’s, homepages, publica-tions) the presentation on the World Soil Day.More information: http://www.dbges.de

The learning processThe members of the curator ship learned the different acceptability of the soils in the course of the years.

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Soil of the Year didactic quality regional importance interest and request appropriate to demonstration 2005: Chernozem

high didactic quality, interesting history, clear function for food production

good regional map-ping, many publications, special Chernozem museum in Eicken-dorf/ Börde, long-term experi-ments with profiles

The interest was very small in the first year

very good design, two hori-zons with clear border and different colours, powerful black humus horizon about yellow Löss -horizon clear transparency of soil fertility

2006: Haplic Albeluvi-sol

bad applicable, difficult understandable gene-sis, scientific clash about genesis

regional occurrence in north-east and east Ger-many, small in other regions

slow growing interest-ing of soil scientists, geologists, museums, regional politicians, medias. Patronage: Minister for agriculture and envi-ronment of the federal state M.-V. Central presentation in Berlin (World Soil day)

complicated design, unclear differentiated soil horizons, not enough infor-mation at the poster

2007: Podzol

high didactic quality, interesting history dependent on land use change and human influence, great attraction in areas with special plants like Erica and Juniper and sheep herds

good regional mapping for instance for big areas in north-west and south-west Ger-many, many interest-ing soil profiles in different federal states

increased interesting of soil specialists, media, schools. Patronage: Prime minis-ter of the federal state Niedersachsen: Central presentation Berlin on the World Soil Day

high aesthetic value, clear colour differences of horizons, interesting blanched horizon about dark brown horizon about sandy coloured horizon, interesting root plait

2008: Arenosol or Cambisol

moderate didactic quality, challenging soil, as the fourth Soil of the Year possible, convincing soil: name and colour are identical

a widespread soil type with many variations, good mapping in Germany and Austria

first soil as an interna-tional action (Germany-Austria)Increased inter-esting of international soil science community. Patronage: Austrian Ambassador in Berlin

moderate for demonstration, not so aesthetic and appeal-ing profile like Chernozem or Podzol, but the stone and the plants increase the design

2009: Gleyic Fluvisol (calcaric)

high didactic quality, the history was very good demonstrated by the stratification of the exclusive profile (poster), the stories of the development were very demonstrative for the community

regional occurrence in north-west and north Ger-many, small in other regions, good mapping

increased interesting of soil scientific and regional community and schools in north-west, small interest in other regions Patronage: Minister of Agriculture and Environ-ment of the federal state Schleswig-Holstein

very high aesthetic value, clear colour differences between the small layers of sand and alluvial mud

2010 UrbicAnthrosols/ Technosols

this soil was very successful for the action, because the most peoples are living in soils, the didactic quality was different and a com-promise resulted on the difficult definition

very high importance in all regions and countries, late scien-tific notice and inves-tigation, problem-oriented substantial data base

high interest in many towns, different stu-dent and school pro-jects, high interest for an special exhibition and a very interesting publication Patronage; Senator for Health, Environment and Consumerism in Berlin

very interesting for demon-stration, but a different task resulted on the diversity of soils, situations, aggregated factors and so on. The curator ship worked together with a large group of scientists, teachers, soil and nature protectors and other specialists.

2011 Vega – Fluvic Cambisol or Fluvisol

good didactic quality combined with river landscape, very impor-tant for understanding of man-made soil deg-radation with extreme outcome like flood

small occurrences nearby the big rivers (Rhein, Elbe), good mapping and data base for environmental renaturation of river landscapes

high scientific interest, regional actions in south-west and north Germany

a river landscape with water and special trees is the requisite for an interesting demonstration and under-standing of the soils

New IUSS NewslettersCommission 1.1 Soil Morphology & Micromorphology In this newsletter: Report of the 19th WCSS,Courses: Tübingen 2011, London 2010, Awards:Kubiëna Medal, Philippe Duchafour Medal, YoungMicromorphologist, Publication Award. Researchnotes: Julie Bell and Zeng-Yei Hseu write about theirresearch projects. Publications: Stoops, Marcelinoand Mees “Interpretation of micromorphologicalfeatures of soils and regoliths.” News from theArchaeological Soil Micromorphology WorkingGroup. Future meetings, workshops and congresses:Pisa 2011, Reading 2011, Vienna 2011, Lleida 2012

Commission 1.6 Paleopedology In this newsletter: Change of commission officers,Dan Yaalon receives Dokuchaev Award, Commissionactivities at the WCSS 2010 in Brisbane, Commissionevents scheduled for the period 2011-2014,Information on INQUA Congress 2011 in Bern,Switzerland, Information on Joint Meeting of theCommissions on Paleopedology and Soil Geographyin 2011, Report: First International Field SummerSchool on Paleopedology, August 3-7, 2010,Western Siberia, Russia, Report: SecondInternational Geochronology Summer School,September 5-10, 2010, Switzerland, Paperspresented at the 19th WCSS in 2010 in BrisbaneBoth Newsletters are available on www.iuss.orgunder <IUSS Newsletters>

Commission 4.5History, philosophy, and sociology of soil scienceThe 2011 History, Philosophy, and Sociology of SoilScience newsletter has been published. This latestedition of the newsletter includes information onthe history, philosophy, and sociology sessions atthe 2010 WCSS and SSSA meetings, news items, ar-

ticles, book reviews, and information on new his-tory, philosophy, and sociology publications. Thenewsletter can be viewed by going to www.iuss.org,clicking on “IUSS Newsletters”, and then scrollingdown to “Commission for History, Philosophy, andSociology of Soil Science.”

News from Wiley and how to write…

Read “How to Write for European Journalof Soil Science and Soil Use and Manage-ment“, a presentation given by the editorsSteve Jarvis and Donald Davidson during

the World Congress of Soil Science in Brisbane inAugust 2010.For their presentation, go to: http://www.black-wellpublishing.com/pdf/soilscience_presentation.pdf. To buy a copy of Writing Scientific Research Ar-ticles by Margaret Cargill and Patrick O’Connor, goto wiley.com or http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Wi-leyTitle/productCd-1405186194.html

Hi NicoleNICOLE is a leading forum oncontaminated land management inEurope, promoting co-operationbetween industry, academia andservice providers on the

development and application of sustainabletechnologies. NICOLE’s objectives are to: • Provide a European forum for the dissemination

and exchange of knowledge and ideas aboutcontaminated land arising from industrial andcommercial activities;

• Identify research needs and promote collaborativeresearch that will enable European industry toidentify, assess and manage contaminated sitesmore efficiently and cost-effectively; and

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IUSS Alerts November 2010 - April 2011

Information for and from the global soil science community IUSS Alerts are e-mailed to more than 12, 000 people in over 100 countries. If you have information toshare, please send it to alfred.hartemink@wur.nl Below are the still relevant contributions that appearedin the IUSS Alerts from November 2010 till April 2011.

• Collaborate with other international networksinside and outside Europe and encompass theviews of a wide a range of interest groups andstakeholders (for example, land developers,local/regional regulators and theinsurance/financial investment community).

More: www.nicole.org

Anthropogenic Soils in Soil TaxonomyICOMANTH (International Committee for Anthro-pogenic Soils) has drafted a 7th Circular Letter to in-troduce classes to recognize human-altered or–transported soils. If you have interest, your con-structive feedback is welcome. We have posted thisCircular at http://clic.cses.vt.edu/soils/~ICOMANTHThe main proposals concern how to recognize andclassify deposits of human-transported material 50cm or more thick. These changes are referenced topages in the 11th Ed. of the Keys to Soil Taxonomyfound online. Please response to john.galbraith@vt.edu

Universal Soil ClassificationAt the recent World Congress, the InternationalUnion of Soil Sciences leadership unanimously sup-ported the formation of a Working Group to re-search the potential of developing a Universal SoilClassification System. The Working Group is chaired by Jon Hempel, USDA-NRCS Jon.hempel@lin.usda.gov in Lincoln, NE and vicechaired by Erika Micheli, Head Department of Soil Sci-ence and Agricultural Chemistry, Szent Istvan Univer-sity Gödöllő, Hungary Micheli.Erika@mkk.szie.huIt is the vision for the Working Group to consist ofany and all Pedologists that have an interest in thisimportant topic. A small core group of Pedologistsgeographically representing the International SoilScience Community has been assembled and isscheduled to meet in the spring of 2011 to begin thediscussion. The following link provides backgroundinformation relating to the Universal Soil Classifica-tion and the Working Group: ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/NSSC/Universal_Soil_Classification_Background/

Your own geophysical lab? Eijkelkamp makes it possible

Since soil compaction has becomesuch a hot item again, EijkelkampAgrisearch Equipment has developed,in close cooperation with the ChristianAlbrechts University in Kiel (Germany),a serie of instruments for measuring

various parameters which are of direct importancefor soil tillage in relation to soil campaction. The se-ries consists of: Air permeameter (08.65), Surfaceshear test apparatus (08.66), Shear test apparatus(08.68), Compression test apparatus (08.67),Hauben water permeameter (09.03). For more in-formation please download our brochure athttp://www.eijkelkamp.com or send an e-mail tobalie@eijkelkamp.com or call +31 313 88 02 00.

Intergovernmental Platformon Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

A new international bodyaimed at catalyzing a globalresponse to the loss of bio-diversity and world’s eco-n o m i c a l l y - i m p o r t a n tforests, coral reefs andother ecosystems was bornby governments at the

United Nations 65th General Assembly (UNGA). Itunderlines the success of the UN’s InternationalYear of Biodiversity and should provide a boost tothe International Year of Forests which began inJanuary 2011, and the international decade of bio-diversity. The adoption, by the UNGA plenary, wasthe last approval needed for setting up an Intergov-ernmental Platform on Biodiversity and EcosystemServices (IPBES). The independent platform will inmany ways mirror the Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change (IPCC) which has assisted in catalyz-ing worldwide understanding and governmental ac-tion on global warming. The new body will bridgethe gulf between the wealth of scientific knowledgeon the accelerating declines and degradation of thenatural world, with knowledge on effective solu-tions and decisive government action required toreverse these damaging trends. Its various roles willinclude carrying out high-quality peer reviews of thewealth of science on biodiversity and ecosystem

JUNE 2011 17

services emerging from research institutes acrossthe globe in order to provide gold standard reportsto governments. These reports will not only coverthe state, status and trends of biodiversity andecosystems, but will also outline transformationalpolicy options and responses to bring about realchange in their fortunes. The IPBES will achieve thisin part by prioritizing, making sense of and bringingconsistency to the great variety of reports and as-sessments conducted by United Nations bodies, re-search centres, universities and others as theyrelate to biodiversity and ecosystem services. Timefor an IP Soil or IP Land?

Working Group on Soil MonitoringLast year the IUSS accepted a proposal for a Work-ing Group (WG) on Soil Monitoring. Ben Marchantfrom Rothamsted has been appointed the secretaryof this working group and Dominique Arrouays fromINRA, Orleans, France is the chair. The WG is nowstarting to plan a program of events. The first willbe a Special Session at the Pedometrics 2011 con-ference at Trest Castle in the Czech Republic (Aug30 - Sept 3). Further details of this conference canbe found at: http://sites.google.com/site/pedomet-rics2011/ There is still time to submit abstracts tothis website before the Feb 1st deadline. If you dointend your talk to be part of the special sessioncould you please email a copy of the abstract toBen.Marchant@bbsrc.ac.uk in addition to the nor-mal submission process. The WG is also proposing aworkshop on statistical aspects of soil monitoring atthe EuroSoils meeting in Bari, Italy next year. If any-body has any other ideas for Working Group events,they would be greatly appreciated. Could you pleasecontact Ben.marchant@bbsrc.ac.uk

Review of Chinese soil scienceZHAO Qi-Guo, HE Ji-Zheng, YAN Xiao-Yuan, ZHANGBin, ZHANG Gan-Lin and CAI Zu-Cong. 2011. Progressin Significant Soil Science Fields of China over theLast Three Decades: A Review. Pedosphere 21, 1-10.Due to continuous decreases in arable land area andcontinuous population increases, Chinese soil scien-tists face great challenges in meeting food demands,mitigating adverse environmental impacts, and sus-taining or enhancing soil productivity under inten-sive agriculture. With the aim of promoting theapplication of soil science knowledge, the paper re-views the achievements of Chinese scientists in soil

resource use and management, soil fertility, globalchange mitigation and soil biology over the last 30years. During this period, soil resource science hasprovided essential support for the use and exploita-tion of Chinese soil resources, and has itself devel-oped through the introduction of new theories suchas Soil Taxonomy and new technologies such as re-mote sensing. Soil fertility science has contributedto the alleviation and elimination of impeding phys-ical and chemical factors that constrain availabilityof essential nutrients and water in soils, the under-standing of nutrient cycling in agroecosystems, andthe increase in nutrient-use efficiency for sustain-able crop production. Chinese soil scientists havecontributed to the understanding of the cropland’srole in global change, particularly to the understand-ing of methane and nitrous oxide emission from ricefields and the effect of elevated carbon dioxide andozone on the rice-wheat system. Soil biology re-search has progressed in biological N fixation, distri-bution of fauna in Chinese soils, and bioremediationof polluted soils. A new generation of soil scientistshas arisen in the last three decades. The gaps be-tween research and application in these soil sciencefields are also discussed.

Skeptical soil scientists ….Skepticism about human-induced global warming isnot fashionable, even dangerous, for scientiststhese days. It used to be that skepticism was the en-gine of scientific discovery, creativity and change.Two of our most experienced and distinguished soilscientists. Miroslav Kutilek and Don Nielsen, haveproduced an impelling long essay on the globalwarming issue. It’s a bit of a page turner. It seemsimportant and well worth reading. MioslavKutilekand Donald R. Nielsen 2009 Facts About GlobalWarming. 227 pp. Catena Verlag, Reiskirchen. Skep-tical soil scientists ….

The American Dust bowl - revisitedThere is a long review by Stanley Trimble of UCLA inthe newish journal Aeolian Research of a book origi-nally published some 30 years ago, Donald Woster’sDust Bowl: the Southern Plains in the Nineteen Thir-ties, OUP. The review seems well worth a read by thesoil science community. See Trimble, S.W., 2010. Don-ald Worster’s “Dust Bowl”. Aeolian Research 2, 1-4.

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Soil Science AidSince 2002 Timor Leste has been trying to improveinfrastructure that was destroyed in the lead up toindependence. In this poor country agricultureprovides livelihoods for more than 80% of thepopulation and as such it is recognised that bet-ter understanding of soils is important. ASSSI de-cided to assist soil science in Timor Leste partlybecause ACIAR (Australian Centre for InternationalAgricultural Research - Seeds of Life program) isoperating there to improve the local capacity toincrease food security. Thus, this ASSSI projectaims to improve the soil science facilities for ayoung developing nation that has many needs, in-cluding the development of soil science. Last yearsurplus soil testing laboratory instruments and ap-paratus were donated from laboratories acrossAustralia and this equipment is now ready forfreighting to Timor Leste. The response for equip-ment was far greater than anticipated with severalspectrophotometers, an oven, centrifuges, bal-ances, a tonne of glassware and many other itemsbeing collected. The cost of shipping the goodsfrom Australia is $10,685. Currently the ASSSI hasraised $3690 towards the freight costs. All fundsdonated are for the project and there are no ad-ministrative costs or fees applied to this project.Link to further information on the soil science inEast Timor project go to: www.soilscienceaustralia.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=5%3Afrontpage&id=120%3Aoverseas-soil-science-project&Itemid=118

Land grabbingDevelopment is the flagship journal ofthe Society for International Develop-ment (SID). A special issue of the jour-nal “Development” focuses on landgrabbing. Land grabbing is the con-

tentious issue of large land transactions; the buy-ing or leasing of large pieces of land in developingcountries, by domestic and transnational compa-nies. Those transnational corporations are oftensupported and encouraged by central govern-ments. The land then mainly is used around theproduction and export of food and biofuels. Re-searchers from the University of Utrecht and theLand Research Action Network present the dilem-mas of the current global land grabs in Africa, LatinAmerica and Asia and how to ensure that the ben-efits from foreign land development are passed onto local people. See: Development, Volume 54,Issue 1 (March 2011)- Global Land Grabs. For arti-cles visit: www.palgrave-journals.com/development/archive/2011_issues.html#Volume-54-1

JUNE 2011 19

5 questions to a soil scientist

5 questions to Jon Chorover

Position: Professor (since 1995)Age: 49Address: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZE-mail: chorover@cals.arizona.edu

1. When did you decide to study soil science? I majored in Environmental Science during collegeand over the summers I worked on a trail crew inthe Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Much ofmy job was digging trenches for retaining walls andtrail tread and I became fascinated with the struc-ture of soils during that experience. I began study-ing soil science as a graduate student at Universityof California at Berkeley.

2. Who has been your most influential teacher?My most influential teacher was a Mr. Smith whotaught environmental science and marine biology inmy high school in Boston. Growing up in the city, Iknew little about the functioning of the naturalworld until I took his classes, which involved fieldtrips to natural areas outside of the city. He alsotaught a class on outdoor sports (rock climbing,kayaking, etc.) and he asked me to assist him withteaching that class, which was an honor.

3. What do you find most exciting about soil sci-ence?As the most complex natural material on theplanet, soils are a remarkable challenge to studyfrom the perspective of chemistry. This is becausethey contain multiple phases (gas, liquid and solid)and multiple components within each of thosephases. Understanding chemical reactions (manyof which are mediated biologically) in such a milieuis quite an exciting undertaking for a chemist thathas an interest in the functioning of the naturalworld.

4. How would you stimulate teenagers and younggraduates to study soil science? I would introduce them to the microscopic patternsin soils. Under a microscope, the beauty and com-plexity of soil becomes more evident than whensoils are viewed with the naked eye. One can beginto see the patterns and distributions of crystals,and how they bind together with organic particles.This immediately makes apparent several thingsthat are otherwise abstract, such as why soils canstore the largest reservoir of organic carbon at theEarth’s surface.

5. How do you see the future of soil science?Soils are increasingly recognized as a central func-tional component within the larger context of Earthsurface science. While soil science has its roots inagricultural sustainability and will always be centralto that application, it now contributes also – and toa much larger extent than in the past – to our evolv-ing understanding of how the Earth responds tochanges in climate and land use. Soil science willbecome increasingly associated with other spheresof Earth science (atmospheric science, geology, hy-drology) as it continues to mature as a discipline.

5 questions to Dani Or

Position: Professor of Soil and TerrestrialEnvironmental Physics (since 2008)

Age: 55Address: ETH Zurich, SwitzerlandE-mail: dani.or@env.ethz.ch

1. When did you decide to study soil science?As a member of a farming community in Israel (Kib-butz) I was always fascinating by how plants grow,the seasons and the annual cropping cycle. I was de-

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bating between Structural Geology and Soil andWater and decided to pursue the latter for the mixof physics and biology.

2. Who has been your most influential teacher?I had several, but the one that stands out is Eshel-Bresler from the VolcaniCenter and the Hebrew Uni-versity of Jerusalem. He was a pioneer inquantitative modeling of water flow and solutetransport, salinity studies and helped introduce andestablish spatial statistics and stochastic hydrology.Eshel taught me how to make educated and defen-sible approximations and encouraged all his stu-dents to always take a quantitative approach to thestudy and prediction of soil processes and othernatural phenomena.

3. What do you find most exciting about soil science?It is the science that focuses on the Earth life sup-port skin – soil is the meeting place of physics, biol-ogy, chemistry and atmosphere. The understandingof the incredible biodiversity hosted in soil with bil-lions of microorganisms in every handful of soil andthe central role soil played and is playing in humanhistory and daily experiences.

4. How would you stimulate teenagers and younggraduates to study soil science? Present the broader function of soil not only forcrop production (which is important), but as thematrix of life that everyone needs to understandmore about its function and role. Explain morevividly the wide arrays of soil eco-hydro-biochemi-cal functions and the imprint of earth ecological(and anthropogenic) history found in it. For thequantitative crowd, describe and emphasize theheterogeneities, complexities, and nonlinearitiesthey’ll be facing in exploring this vast frontier be-neath that is so essential to life on earth,

5. How do you see the future of soil science?The prominence of soil science is rapidly growing inall central issues faced by society – from interac-tions with climate change, to food security, to morebalanced approach to ecosystem services. In allthese central issues, soil plays a prominent role, onethat cannot be treated by geologists or geotechnicalengineers, or by ecologists alone – the proper placeof soil issues is best represented by professionalstrained in holistic understanding of soil function asa system with solid foundations in the chemistry, bi-

ology, and physics as well as clear understanding ofinteractions with water resources below and atmos-phere above. I see a great future for soil scientists inthe coming years when issues of resource scarcitybecome front page news and as the secrets of mi-crobiological life migrate from bench top studies toreal soil.

5 questions to Rosa M. Poch

Position: Professora Titular d’Universitat, since 1998Accreditation for Catedràtica (Full Professor),since 2011. Universitat de Lleida

Age: 48Address: ETSEA – UdL, Av. Rovira Roure 191, Lleida

25198E-mail: rosa.poch@macs.udl.cat

1. When did you decide to study soil science?During high school I enjoyed biology, physics andmaths. But it was only after reading old writings ofmy grandfather, who was a viticulturalist and polit-ical activist in favour of the farmers, that I under-stood his love for the land and I decided to go forAgricultural Engineering, at the Polytechnic Univer-sity of Catalonia. Somehow, I must have it in mygenes. Soil Science was a compulsory subject, and Ifound it fascinating. The year after I passed the sub-ject I was dropping now and then in the Departmentof Soil Science to join field trips to see more soils. Inone of these drop-in’s, my professor told me that inhalf an hour they were leaving to the west of Spainto look for alkaline soils, with Christian Walter, whowas a visiting student at that time; and invited meto join them. At first I said no, but being half wayhome, I turned back and accepted. In our way wecrossed Madrid and visited Carlos Roquero, an oldSoil Science professor, who impressed me becauseof his deep knowledge of spanish soils. Now I thinkthat hunting natric horizons in that field trip mademe decide to be a soil scientist.

2. Who has been your most influential teacher?My professor at that time, Jaume Porta, was themost influential, because he made me realize theimportance of soils, and encouraged me to continuemy studies in Ghent. Since then, I’m also very muchindebted to Georges Stoops, who made me awareof how fascinating are soils through the microscope.Both of them were my PhD co-promoters. Otherpeople that I admire for their rigour, honesty, valueof hard work in science and love for soils are JaumeBoixadera, Josep M. Alcañiz, Rob Fitzpatrick, E.A.FitzPatrick and Jan Hopmans. And I’ll never forgetNarcísTeixidor, who was never a lecturer, but whoseenormous knowledge and enthusiasm for soils Ideeply admired.

3. What do you find most exciting about soil science?The fact that, more than in other sciences, there arealways things to discover about how soils areformed, how they behave and how they will answerto future changes. In soil science it is amazing howparadigms and theories can appear and disappearin a short period of time. Also, my oppinion is thatyou can’t be a soil scientist without being an ac-tivist, which doesn’t happen in most of the disci-plines or professions.

4. How would you stimulate teenagers and younggraduates to study soil science? I have been lecturing to first year students, and Ifind it a challenge to convey them my excitementand the pleasure I feel when I try to understandsoils and their environment. When I am with stu-dents, I try to remember how I felt when I was astudent and try to use the arguments that wouldconvince me at that time. I was working with sec-ondary school teachers for some years, preparingthe University access tests on Earth and Environ-mental Sciences, and I was always trying to writequestions where you could realize the usefulnessof soil science as an individual science, consideringsoil as a natural body. We organize also a summercourse where we spend most of our time in thefield showing the soils of the Pyrenees, to schoolteachers, students of secondary school, natural-ists,… and it’s amazing how much they can learnonly looking at them. Definitely, the best place is inthe field.

5. How do you see the future of soil science?Much discussion is going on on the subject, and to

make it short, I don’t like to dilute soil science in en-vironmental sciences. I have seen how the credit-hours devoted to earth sciences are beingprogressively reduced in each change of curricula,in spite of our efforts fighting against new waves, asbiotechnology, for instance. This is leading to anom-alous situations where you have to explain basic soilscience to MSc students. There is no magical solu-tion, but I think that it’s partly our fault, and werather must make people aware, in each of our re-ports, theses, projects, works for companies, and soon, of the usefulness and uniqueness of soil sciencein environmental studies.

5 questions to Edward R. Landa

Position: Ground Water Geochemistry ResearchGroup, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston,Virginia (1978-present)Adjunct Professor, Department ofEnvironmental Science andTechnology, University of Maryland,College Park (2010-present)

Age: 62Address: USAE-mail: erlanda@usgs.gov

1. When did you decide to study soil science?I was a junior in college, majoring in geology, in1968. I had, until then, only a rudimentary knowl-edge of soils from classroom discussions of weath-ering. The existence of soil science as a field ofstudy was unknown to me. While taking a class inmineralogy, I read a recent paper in Science by claymineralogist Charles Rich of the Agronomy Depart-ment at Virginia Polytechnic Institute [Brown, JL,Rich, CI (1968) High-resolution electron microscopyof muscovite. Science 161:1135-1137]. I found thekind of varied and highly dynamic systems describedhere —of frayed edges, interlayers, and ion ex-change— to be of real interest. With that in mind,and wanting some exposure to the field of soil sci-ence, I got a summer job at the Charles Lathrop

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Pack Forest in the southeastern Adirondack Moun-tains of New York, working with Dr. Albert Leaf(Ph.D., soil science, University of Wisconsin) of theState University College of Forestry. The projectlooked at factors influencing the growth of red pineon a soil developed on outwash sand. That summer-of-1969 experience, crystallized in my mind by theApollo 11 moon landing, set me on the path to a ca-reer in soil science.

2. Who has been your most influential teacher?Without a doubt, it has to be Dr. Robert G. Gast ofthe Department of Soil Science at the University ofMinnesota. Bob came to Minnesota to join the fac-ulty in soil mineralogy/chemistry just before my ar-rival as a new graduate student in the summer of1970. I did my MS work on the characterization andadsorptive properties of ferric oxides and hydrousoxides, and Ph.D. work on the behavior in soils andplants of the long-lived fission product technetium-99, under Bob’s guidance. Bob went on to becomethe Vice President of Research and Graduate Stud-ies at Michigan State University before retiring in1998. Sadly, Bob passed away last year. I will alwaysremember his scholarship, mentorship, and per-sonal example.

3. What do you find most exciting about soil science?Much of my work at the U.S. Geological Survey hasfocused on uranium mill tailings, the waste rock leftafter uranium extraction from the ground ore. Oncedeposited on the land surface, soil-formingprocesses, superimposed on minerals created in themilling circuit, govern the evolution of these tail-ings. Training in soil science thus provides a uniquelens for examining the biological, physical, andchemical processes controlling the mobility of con-taminants from such materials. The dynamism andmulti-faceted nature of what C.C. Nikiforoff calledthe “excited skin of the earth’s crust” is what I findexciting about soils (& soil-like materials) and theirstudy.

4. How would you stimulate teenagers and younggraduates to study soil science? As practitioners in an inherently interdisciplinaryfield, I think soil scientists view the environment ina holistic way, and tend not to see formal discipli-nary boundaries as limiting what is within our graspfor investigation. Although we may occasionally visitsilos in our work, “silo thinking” in which there islimited communication, cooperation and under-

standing across such boundaries is generally notpart of our make-up.

I recently joined the faculty of the Department of En-vironmental Science and Technology at the Univer-sity of Maryland. This has been an invigoratingexperience for me, and I thank the graduate studentsand faculty for the chance to be a part of the activityhere. Our department (http://agnr.umd.edu/depart-ments/enst/) has a tremendous breadth of researchunderway—ranging from ecological technology de-sign & engineering and environmental & ecologicalhealth, to wetland science and soil science. It createsa unique learning community where the sum is trulygreater than the parts.

I think that such intellectual diversity, supported bya shared ecological framework, can be appealing tostudents, and that its presence can enhance recruit-ment to soil science. Within that broader setting, Ialso believe that students will find the tight-knit na-ture of our soil science community to be appealing.As a student coming from another discipline, I feltthat immediately when I attended my first SSSAmeeting in 1970, and that sense has stayed with meever since. I hope that such a human component ispart of the personal message we convey when dis-cussing our field of study with students and poten-tial recruits.

5. How do you see the future of soil science?The traditional employment bases of soil scientistsare changing, and this flux can be often be discon-certing. My hopes are that: • As our students move out into perhaps non-tra-

ditional positions, they will maintain their coreself-identity as soil scientists, and continue tosee the soil science societies as their prime pro-fessional affiliation and disciplinary base.

• We all will be active participants, not pessimisticbystanders, in the future changes in soil science.Each of us needs to get out and actively spreadthe message of the importance of soils in a sus-tainable future for Planet Earth, and of soil sci-ence as a player in that future.

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5 questions to Teodoro Miano

Position: Full Professor (since 2001)Age: 51Address: Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry of

AgroForestry and Environment, Universityof Bari, Italy

E-mail: miano@agr.uniba.it

1. When did you decide to study soil science?It happened by chance. I was about to decide mymajor when an offer came from the Soil ChemistryGroup at the Faculty of Agriculture. I ended upworking with Nicola Senesi on soil organic mattermanagement, humus chemistry and metal-organicmatter interactions. That experience was ex-tremely significant and I decided to work in soilscience.

2. Who has been your most influential teacher?For sure Nicola Senesi introduced me to soil science,to the scientific approach and attitude, to organizean experiment and to write in English, basicallyeverything. Later on, I have met several renownedscientists in various places of the world, Masters intheir disciplines, I worked with some and I enjoyedlearning from all of them also from the human pointof view.

3. What do you find most exciting about soil science?Soil is the source of life on earth. I love its diver-sity in time and space, its countless equilibria, itsinteractions with hydrosphere, atmosphere andbiosphere, its origin and its evolution. I found it afascinating world which is still largely unknown.

4. How would you stimulate teenagers and younggraduates to study soil science? I try to let them understand what I like most, why Ilike it and why soil is so important for them and forfuture generations. I also try to show them howmany jobs can be connected to soil science outthere. Soil is really located in the center of our uni-

verse and no matter where or when, sooner or latereverybody has to get in touch with soils. This is mymain messages in classes.

5. How do you see the future of soil science?A see very important opportunities for soil sciencein the future. It is extremely important though thatthe soil community widen his horizons and per-spectives, trying to relate and connect with othermajor disciplines, such as hydrology, geomorphol-ogy, biogeochemistry, natural hazard, and others.The future is multidisciplinarity, integration of di-verse expertise, common research interest and es-pecially communication. A strong effort should bedevoted to communicate the kingdom of soil sci-ence to younger generations using all possiblemeans. They are the real future and the main driv-ing forces of the future of the planet.

5 questions to Reinhold Jahn

Position: Professor of Soil Science (since 1997)Age: 63Address: University of Halle, Institute of agricultural

and nutritional sciences,D-06120 Halle (Saale), Germany

E-mail: reinhold.jahn@landw.uni-halle.de

1. When did you decide to study soil science?About 1980 by doing my diploma work about soilerosion in Nepal. There at first I realized the de-pendency of people from soil and how endangeredsoils are.

2. Who has been your most influential teacher?My first teacher was Hans-Peter Blume. I learned tolook if something is behind the obvious things. Mysecond teacher was Karl Stahr. I could accompanyhim often times for field work and excursions. Hetaught me soil genesis, soil mineralogy, field work,soil classification and some others and I enjoyed hisenthusiasm for soil science.

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3. What do you find most exciting about soil science?I am happy for having the chance to see soils inmany different environments and there various oc-currence and behavior. The complexity of soils andthere linkages to so many needs of our life makes itchallenging to work and to teach about.

4. How would you stimulate teenagers and younggraduates to study soil science?To go from the simple things to the more complexones and to show how many things of our life areconnected to soils. We should more work in schoolsand the public to show the practical impact of soilscience.

5. How do you see the future of soil science?I am a bit pessimistic. On the one side I am surethat the demand of knowledge about soils will in-crease. On the other side I see that the importanceand increasing environmental problems (and avail-able money) have attracted other disciplines todeal with soils without understanding the soil itself.This is probably one reason why we are stumblingfrom one problem to the other. I hope I am notright and we are able to come more in the focus ofthe society.

The World Reference Base for Soil Resources(WRB) is a worldwide applicable soil classificationsystem. The first edition was published in 1998. Inthe same year, WRB was adopted by the IUSSCouncil (in that time: ISSS) as the IUSS system forinternational correlation of soils. WRB was built onthe experiences of the FAO-Unseco Soil Map of theWorld (Legends of 1974 and 1988) and earlier ISSSinitiatives like the International Reference Base forSoil Classification (1982).

Classification of pedonsAt the 2006 World Soil Congress in Philadelphia, thesecond edition of WRB was presented (World SoilResources Reports 103, FAO, Rome). It has beenelaborated by the IUSS Working Group WRB througha long process of discussion. In 2007, an ElectronicUpdate was published at the WRB’s homepage atFAO (http://www.fao.org/nr/land/soils/soil/en/) tocorrect some errors that have been found in theprinted document. Translations of the second edi-tion into Arabic, Chinese, German, Latvian, Polish,Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian are available. Someother translations are also being worked on. WRB has two categoric levels. The upper level com-prises 32 Reference Soil Groups (RSG), identified bya key. At the lower level, the soil names are con-structed by adding adjectives, called qualifiers, tothe name of the RSG. The qualifiers are defined in acommon list. For each RSG, a specific list of possiblequalifiers is provided. This list is subdivided into Pre-fix Qualifiers and Suffix Qualifiers. The qualifiers ofa RSG have a required sequence but no ranking ofimportance. For correct classification, every apply-ing qualifier has to be added. This system is flexible,easy to apply and provides a lot of informationabout soils.

Construction of map legendsAlthough WRB was originally designed for the clas-sification of individual soils (pedons), there is an in-

creasing demand to use WRB for making map leg-ends. To satisfy this demand, the IUSS WorkingGroup WRB issued “Guidelines for constructingsmall-scale map legends using WRB” and publishedthem in January 2010 on the WRB homepagehttp://www.fao.org/nr/land/soils/soil/en/.TheseGuidelines are recommended for scales of 1 : 250000 and smaller. Without changing definitions, theGuidelines provide a different allocation of quali-fiers. For every RSG, they are subdivided into MainQualifiers (ranked) and Optional Qualifiers (notranked). This allows the number of qualifiers usedfor the soils of a map unit to depend on the mapscale.

Applications of WRBThe IUSS Working Group WRB is grateful to the JointResearch Centre of the European Commission forpublishing many applications of WRB, among thema series of soil atlases using WRB. To date the “Eu-rope” and “Northern Circumpolar Region” atlaseshave been published.

FutureThe third edition of the WRB is planned to be pub-lished at the 2014 World Soil Congress in Seoul. It isexpected that most WRB definitions and the key willundergo only minor changes. The testing of WRB2006 and the feedback from the soil science com-munity revealed most definitions to be good andworkable. Criticism was, however, received for themanner of allocating the qualifiers as Prefix Quali-fiers and Suffix Qualifiers with a compulsory se-quence, but without ranking. The Guidelines forconstructing small-scale map legends with theirMain Qualifiers (ranked) and Optional Qualifiers(not ranked) can guide the way to the third editionof WRB. In addition, a family level should be addedgiving information of practical value like parent ma-terial, texture, clay mineralogy, carbonates, soil re-action, organic surface layers, and depth.

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World Reference Base for Soil Resources

JUNE 2011 27

(Field) MeetingsSeveral meetings related to the WRB were heldsince 2006. In 2007, the German Soil Science Soci-ety hosted a field tour on the newly-introduced Ref-erence Soil Groups Technosols and Stagnosols.Suggestions for refining the definitions of the Tech-nosols and for a better delimitation of Stagnosolswith Planosols and Albeluvisols have been made. In2008, the conference “Problems of soil classificationand diagnostics” in Cernivtsi (Ukraine) discussedmany WRB issues. The “International Conference &Field Workshop on Soil Classification” in Chile, anactivity of the IUSS Commission on Soil Classifica-tion, was broadly dedicated to testing WRB for clas-sifying soils. The meeting “Soil Geography: NewHorizons” which was held in Huatulco Santa Cruz(Mexico) in 2009 and the related field tours allowedintensive discussions about the suitability of WRBfor classifying soils in arid and humid tropical envi-ronments. At the World Soil Congress in Brisbane,several symposia were related to WRB, especiallythe symposium “The WRB ®evolution” that was or-ganized by the Working Group. Several pre and postcongress tours gave the opportunity to discuss WRBin the field. In September 2010, the Working Groupaccepted an invitation by the Norwegian Soil andLandscape Institute to study interesting Norwegiansoils, among them various soils strongly influencedby water. This year, the IUSS Working Group WRB will have afield trip to Southwest Poland from August 30 toSeptember 3, organized by the Wroclaw Universityof Environmental and Live Sciences.

Further informationFor further information, please download the WRBnewsletters from our homepage at FAO:http://www.fao.org/nr/land/soils/soil/en/

Peter SchadChair of IUSS Working Group WRBschad@wzw.tum.de

WRB excursion in Norway, 2010

The IUSS Working Group on an Universal Soil Classi-fication System met in West Lafayette Indiana atPurdue University (USA) from May 6 – May 11,2011. The meeting was hosted by Dr. Phillip Owensof the Purdue Agronomy Department. Ninety per-cent of the core working group was able to attendthis working session. There was significant progressmade during the 5 day session and a framework formoving forward was developed. The entire reportfor the meeting will be made available to the over-all IUSS in the near future.It was agreed that the new system should includethe following principles.• Provide professional disciplinary challenge • Meet multiple global challenges (climate, food,

water etc.) • One system • Larger user groups than the current systems• Reduce and preferably reduce the number of

classes that serve as “catch all”• Standardization of methods and assessment of

diagnostics• Allow other diagnostics (e.g. soil biology) and

greater depths than 2 m• Should be able to include soils from all over the

world

• Incorporate the latest knowledge and insights• Mechanism to organize new information• Expanding the scope of taxonomic consideration

(e.g. Anthropogenic, Urban, Subaqueous, Pale-osols, Other planets)

In addition to universal soil classification, the groupis charged with proposing standards for diagnosticcriteria, correlation methodology, nomenclatureand horizon designations/definitions, laboratorymethods, guidelines for field descriptions and newobservation methods.Task groups were developed to pursue each ofthese designated areas.

An interesting concept that was presented to thegroup by Sergey Goryachkin related to the how theochricepipedon has been used as a “catch all” for awide variety of surface horizon conditions. Thegroup decided that the timing is right to look intothe potential of developing new surface classes thatdocument a diverse variety of conditions that areimportant to management issues and communica-tion of environmental state and transition informa-tion.The group also decided to explore the potential todevelop a dual or parallel nomenclature that in-

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Universal Soil ClassificationSystem

cludes and accommodates both a scientific and non-technical language and vernacular. The group seesthis as an important means of communicating soilinformation to the lay community.The group will develop a website that will be opento all interested individuals. This information willbe communicated to the overall IUSS community inthe near future.

The next meeting of the task group will be at theAmerican Society of Agronomy meetings in San Anto-nio, Texas October 16 – 19, 2011. This meeting willbe open to all interested parties. The dates for themeeting will be posted at the meeting and in an IUSSalert before the meeting.

Jon HempelUSDA-NRCSChair WG Universal Soil Classification System

JUNE 2011 29

Sergey Goryachkin points his way ahead to Dick Arnold and John Galbraiht

Paul HallettScottish Crop Research InstituteInvergowrie, DundeeDD2 5DAPaul.hallett@scri.ac.uk

Two of my three favourite soil science books arewell-thumbed textbooks found in my office (or usu-ally sitting on the desks of colleagues). The otherbook is popular nonfiction that is not a soil sciencebook per se but a very influential recent advocateof our discipline.

Mitchell, J.K., and K. Soga. 2005 Fundamentals ofsoil behavior 3rd ed John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken,NJ. ISBN 13: 978-0-471-46302-7 This is a gem of a textbook aimed at geotechnicalengineers but arguably the most valuable referenceavailable to anyone interested in the mechanical be-haviour of soils. The first few chapters appreciatehow the formation of soil underlies its complexity.Topics such as biological influence on soil behav-iour, clay chemistry, organic matter and rheologyare included. Soil mechanics theory is covered indepth, but unlike many other textbooks in this area,the concepts are accessible and easy to follow.Marshall, T.J., Holmes, J.W. and Rose, C.W. 1996. Soilphysics. (3rd Edition). Cambridge University Press,Cambridge. ISBN 0-52145-151-5My second edition copy of this textbook is startingto fall apart after 18 years of constant use. It is con-cise, well written and a good reference for anyonewith a basic knowledge of soil science that needs in-formation on physical behaviour. Like all soil physicstextbooks, soil-water relations are the centraltheme. However, topics such as soil structure, me-chanical behaviour and physical conditions for plantgrowth are also included. Soil physics is a disciplineblessed with many excellent textbooks, each withparticular strengths. Marshall, Holmes and Rose isin my view the best ‘all-rounder’.

Wright, Ronald. 2004. A Short History of Progress.Anansi, Toronto. ISBN 0-88784-706-4.Ronald Wright found a common theme to explainthe downfall of past civilisations. From the fall ofthe first city, Uruk, to modern agriculture, he cites

how the mismanagement of soil destroys resources,food and eventually life. Originally a Massey Lec-ture in Canada, this is an incredibly well researchedand argued thesis. By advocating the importance ofsoil in the popular press, Wright has done a greatfavour for our discipline. This book was not in-tended to be a soil science book, but it helps over-come the old cliché of ‘soil being treated like dirt’.Useful ammunition if you come across unenlight-ened individuals who find your profession bizarre,boring or unimportant.

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Favourite soil science books

Victor B. AsioVisayas State University, Philippines

Soil science is a rapidly growing ecological earth sci-ence. Consequently, the number of books on thesubject has greatly increased in the last two decades.So to choose my top three soil science books, Ithought of this criterion: the book must have beenvery useful to me when I was a student and it is stilluseful now in my research and teaching activities asa professor of soil science. The criterion automati-cally disqualifies some very good books that I usedas a student but for various reasons I seldom or donot use them today as well as some outstanding soilscience books published in recent years but were notyet available during my student days.

My first choice is the Properties and Managementof Soils in the Tropics by Pedro A. Sanchez publishedin 1976 by John Wiley and Sons. It discusses in asimple but in-depth manner the tropical environ-ment (climate, vegetation types, geology, land useand farming systems); the classification of tropicalsoils using Soil Taxonomy, FAO and some other im-portant systems; the physical and chemical proper-ties, clay mineralogy, and exchange processes oftropical soils; soil acidity and liming; soil nutrientsand fertility evaluations; and soil managementunder different tropical land use systems. This out-standing book certainly belongs to the most impor-tant and influential books on tropical soils. I still useit regularly and even require my graduate studentsto read certain parts of it.My second choice is Tropical Soils. A ComprehensiveStudy of their Genesis by E.C.J. Mohr, F.A. van Baren,and J. van Schuylenborgh (3rd revised edition) pub-lished in 1972 by Mouton-IchtiarBaru-Van Hoeve.The book has three parts. Part I deals on the funda-mentals of climate, rock and mineral weathering,and organic matter transformation. Part II discussesoxisols, leteritic soils, podzolic soils and podzols,vertisols, paddy soils, and andosols. Part III coversthe experimental and physico-chemical study ofsoil-forming processes. I find it an excellent andunique book on tropical soils because of the cover-age and details in which the topics are presented. Ithas been very useful to me especially during my

masteral and doctoral studies (we used it for thecourse on tropical soils in Hohenheim). I still con-sult this book often which is an important part ofmy personal library.

My third choice is the standard soil science text-book in German-speaking countries, the Scheffer/Schachtschabel Lehrbuch der Bodenkunde (Text-book of Soil Science) now in its 16th edition (Spek-trum Academisches Verlag). The book hasundergone several revisions under different teamsof authors. The latest edition was prepared by H.P.Blume, G.W. Bruemmer, R. Horn, E, Kandeler, I.Koegel-Knabner, R. Kretzschmar, K. Stahr, and B.M.Wilke, all leading soil scientists. It covers the originand development of soils; physical, biological andchemical properties of and processes in soils; nu-trients and contaminants; soil systematics and ge-ography; soils and soil landscapes of Europe andthe world; soil evaluation and protection. It is anexcellent textbook for students who understandGerman. I find it also a vital reference for my re-search and teaching activities.

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Awards

Miroslav Kutílek

The President of the Czech Republic grants TheMedal of Merit to Prof. Ing. Miroslav Kutílek, Dr.Sc. to recognize meritorious service to the state inthe field of science. Professor Miroslav Kutílek(1927) is a distinguished Czech scientist focusingon soil science, soil physics and climate change. Hisworks in these fields met with an international ac-claim. He is a member of international scientificsocieties and gave lectures at many universitiesabroad. During the totalitarian regime he pub-lished his non-fiction works under a pseudonym insamizdat editions

Professor Emeritus Raoul (Rudi) Dudal, Geo-Insti-tute, KatholiekeUniversiteit Leuven, Belgium hasbeen awarded the Guy Smith award by the Commis-sion on Soil Classification of the International Unionof Soil Sciences, at the event of the 19th World Con-gress of Soil Science in Brisbane, Australia.

Laudatio for Prof Rudi Dudalby Prof. Jozef (Seppe) DeckersSecretary-General of the Soil Science Society of Belgium

Distinguished delegates, Mr. President of the SoilScience Society of Belgium, Mr. Chairman of theIUSS Division of Soil in Space and Time, it is a realhonor for me to provide this laudatio for ProfessorRudi Dudal at the occasion of the handing over ofthe first Guy Smith medal for soil classification.

Let me start by providing a brief overview of RudiDudal’s professional career. After Rudi Dudal grad-uated as PhD in agricultural sciences from theKatholiekeUniversiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven), Bel-gium he joined the Belgian Soil Survey Centre atLeuven as Party Chief. The soil survey was still in itsearly stage and aiming at inventorying our land re-

sources for the purpose of sustained food produc-tion. Rudi contributed to setting up the morpho-ge-netic Belgian soil classification system. With his PhDin 1955 on the loess soils of Central Belgium, Rudiset a bench mark on soil genesis and classification.

He then joined FAO as technical assistant on Soil Re-sources Appraisal in Indonesia, where he alsoserved as Professor in Soil Science at the Universityof Indonesia. At that time he travelled across In-dochina by elephant to assess the soil resources ofthe area. As of 1960 he was posted at the FAO head-quarters in Rome to become the correlator of theFAO/Unesco Soil Map of the World of 1960. Thiswas not an easy task in view of the cold war whichwas still causing big political tensions between theWestern countries and the east-block countries. ButRudi managed to overcome these problems by de-veloping friends all over the world independent ofpolitical or religious conviction. This approach isclearly reflected in the soil names of the World soilmap legend which find roots from all over the globe.From then onwards things moved very fast: in 1970he was the Chief, Soil Resources Development andConservation Service of FAO. At that time Rudi waselected as Secretary-General of the InternationalSoil Science Society (IUSS). From 1976 till 1984 hewas the Director of the Land and Water Develop-ment Division in FAO.

In 1984 he joined the K.U.Leuven University as fullprofessor in Soil Geography, Soils of the Tropics andLand Evaluation at the Faculty of Agricultural andApplied Biological Sciences.

Let me now highlight the Rudi’s contributions to soilclassification. By developing the Legend of theFAO/Unesco Soil Map of the World, Rudi made amajor contribution towards harmonizing existingnational soil classification systems. Thanks to hisgood personal relations at the time with Guy Smithfrom USDA, Rudi took the fortunate decision toadopt the concept of diagnostic horizons, proper-ties and materials and implemented it at Worldscale in the FAO Legend of the Soil Map of theWorld. This was so successful that afterwards many

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Awards

Rudi Dudal

countries used the Legend of the Soil Map of theWorld for soil mapping and as a classification.When in 1980 FAO and UNEP took the initiative ofthe International Reference base for Soil Classifica-tion (IRB), Rudi was there to steer the initiative andbecame its secretary as of 1986 through to 1992.During the famous meeting of IRB at Montpellier in1992, Rudi has played a key role in aligning the IRBwith the revised legend of the FAO Soil map of theWorld. As such the World Reference Base for SoilResources (WRB) was born and could count on thefull support from FAO and other organizations of theUnited Nations. In 1998, during the World Congressof Soil Science at Montpellier, the IUSS adoptedWRB as its system for soil correlation and classifica-tion. Presently Rudi continues to play an importantrole by supporting harmonization in soil classifica-tion, particularly in our recent project on the trans-lation of the soil map of Belgium and Luxembourgto WRB. With his phenomenal background rootingback to his time as a Belgian soil surveyor and allwhat followed during his career as prominent soilscientist, we are very happy and proud to have Rudion this team. We are very happy with Rudi’s contin-ued presence at the Geo-Institute at K.U.LeuvenUniversity where he is still keeping in close touchwith the scholars in soil science, stirring up scien-tific debate on major world issues such as carboncycles and soil evolution under the global changescenario.

We are very proud and happy that the selectioncommittee of the Guy Smith Prize decided to awardits first prize to Professor Rudi Dudal. May I now re-quest Prof. Karl Star Chair of IUSS Division of Soil inSpace and Time, to hand over the Guy Smith prize toRudi Dudal.

Seppe DeckersSecretary-General, Soil Science Society of Belgium

IUSS BULLETIN 11834

The laureate of the 2011 IFA Norman Borlaug Awardfor excellence in crop nutrition research is Dr RolandBuresh of the International Rice Research Institute(IRRI) in the Philippines. Dr Buresh is Principal Scientistat IRRI where he leads the Institute’s work on site-spe-cific nutrient management (SSNM). The award recog-nizes his work in transforming the scientific concept ofSSNM to innovative knowledge transfer tools based ondecision-support software, the Internet, mobilephones and field practices readily usable by rice grow-ers. Such tools bring precision agriculture techniquesto small-scale farmers in developing countries.Dr Buresh has been working on nutrient and cropmanagement for the past 30 years. He joined IRRI in2000 and has since been involved in work focusingon rice, such as sustainable management of intensiveirrigated rice, crop residue management and man-agement of rice-maize cropping systems. Through hisinvolvement with the Irrigated Rice Research Consor-tium (IRRC) – a partnership between IRRI, nationalresearch centres in ten Asian countries and the pri-vate sector, Dr Buresh initiated the development ofinnovative knowledge transfer tools targeting specif-ically small-scale farmers in Asia and potentially in

many more regions. These tools include:• computer-based decision support software avail-

able to extension workers, crop advisors, andfarmers through the internet and mobile phones;

• videos for farmers; and• quick guides for fertilizer best management.Dr Buresh’s most recent and recognized accomplish-ment is ‘Nutrient Manager’, an IT-based decision-support tool that provides extension workers,farmers and researchers field-specific nutrient man-agement practices for rice. Nutrient Manager canbe adapted to the conditions of any country or re-gion and requires little data input. Each country- orregion-specific tool consists of ten to twenty ques-tions that can be easily answered with no need forsoil or plant analyses. Nutrient Manager for Rice hasbeen tested and implemented successfully in thePhilippines and in Indonesia by rice growers usinglocal languages. Through an innovative public-pri-vate partnership in the Philippines, involving the De-partment of Agriculture and two national mobilephone service providers, Dr Buresh led the develop-ment of a mobile phone application of NutrientManager for Rice using interactive voice response

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Awards

Roland Buresh

(IVR). With this service, a rice farmer calls a toll-freenumber, answers questions by pushing the phonekeypad as prompted by a voice recording, and thenreceives a text message with a fertilizer guidelinecustomized for the farmer’s field and cultivationpractices. Nutrient Manager is expected to beadopted by many more countries. Local versions forBangladesh, China, India, Vietnam, and West Africaare under development. Prior to joining IRRI, Dr Buresh was Principal Soil Sci-entist at the International Centre for Research inAgroforestry (ICRAF) in Nairobi, Kenya and Soil Sci-entist at the International Fertilizer DevelopmentCentre (IFDC), where he led a collaborative projectbetween IFDC and IRRI in the Philippines. Dr Buresh is the 20th recipient of the Award. He wasnominated by Atlas Fertilizer Corporation in thePhilippines, and has been selected by an independ-ent jury among twelve high-level candidates fromdeveloped countries and international agriculturalresearch and development centres. Dr Buresh grad-uated from Louisiana State University in 1978 witha PhD in Marine Sciences. He also received an M.Sc.in Soil Science from North Dakota State University.Dr Buresh will accept the Award at the Opening Ses-sion of the IFA Annual Conference on Tuesday, 24May in Montreal.

IUSS BULLETIN 11836

David JenkinsonFRS was an internationally recognisedsoil scientist and a long-standing member of Rotham-sted staff. He died after a short illness on 16th Febru-ary 2011. His research on carbon and nitrogen cyclingin soil over a period of some 50 years had enormousinfluence in setting patterns of thinking in a diverserange of areas including food security and global cli-mate change. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal So-ciety in 1991, one of very few soil scientists to achievethis honour. He was awarded Honorary Membershipof the Soil Science Society of America in 1995 and ofthe British Society of Soil Science in 2007. He receivedthe Massey Ferguson National Agricultural Award in1993 for his work on increasing the efficiency of useof nitrogen in agriculture

David was born in California on 25th February 1928but his family returned to Ireland when he was fouryears old and bought a farm in County Armagh. Inlater years he explained that growing up on a farm

showed him the back-breaking labour involved inpractical farming. He was keen that science shouldbe used to ease this burden and was impatient withthose calling for “traditional methods” in agriculture.He attended the Royal School, Armagh for 6 yearsfrom 1940. After under-graduate and post-graduatestudy in chemistry at Trinity College Dublin, he tookhis first soil science post at the University of Reading.He joined Rothamsted in 1957 where he remaineduntil his retirement in 1988. After retirement he wasappointed a Lawes Trust Senior Fellow at Rotham-sted and Visiting Professor in Soil Science at the Uni-versity of Reading. For over 20 years after formalretirement he continued to guide and inspire numer-ous younger scientists from around the world, andto publish highly influential papers.David was a pioneer in soil science research, settingtrends that others followed. During the early1960s hewas among the first soil scientists to exploit the use ofradioactive 14C labelling to study the transformation

JUNE 2011 37

In Memoriam

David Stewart Jenkinson1928-2011

of plant residues entering soil, utilising incubation ex-periments carried out under field conditions. Thiswork, later repeated in the tropical climate of Nigeria(through collaboration with colleagues at the Interna-tional Institute of Tropical Agriculture, IITA), laid thefoundations for much of our current understanding ofsoil carbon dynamics. It eventually led to the devel-opment of one of the first soil carbon simulation mod-els, RothC, initially through collaboration with JamesRayner who was a specialist in the mathematicaltreatment of X-ray crystallographic data. Later devel-opments were in collaboration with Kevin Coleman,including an updated version published in 2008. Ver-sions of RothC are widely used worldwide, both in re-search and for quantifying changes in soil carbonstocks as part of emerging carbon accreditationschemes. At the last count there were over 1000 reg-istered users in 80 countries. David was among thefirst to draw attention to the significance of soil or-ganic carbon stocks in the context of the global car-bon cycle and climate change. His paper in Nature in1991 was the first quantitative assessment of the po-tential for a “positive feedback” in which carbon diox-ide released from decomosition of organic matter insoil accelerates climate change. He is perhaps best known for his development of atechnique for measuring the quantity of carbon heldin the cells of living microorganisms in soil. In a 1966paper he introduced the concept of the soil microbialbiomass in which soil microbes are treated as a singleentity rather than using classical microbiological tech-niques to identify and count the different species. Thisconcept was revolutionary, opening the way for a newwave of research in soil biology, decades before cur-rent developments facilitated by molecular biologicalmethods. Papers with David Powlson in 1976 de-scribed a detailed appraisal and a practical methodfor measuring biomass carbon content. A 1987 paper,describing a further development of the methodol-ogy (with Phil Brookes and Eric Vance), is still the mosthighly cited paper in the journal Soil Biology and Bio-chemistry and the most highly cited paper by aRothamsted scientist. Other work, especially with PhilBrookes, drew attention to fascinating issues regard-ing the survival of a large microbial population in soilwith only meagre inputs of substrate.David was a strong advocate of the value of long-term field studies in agricultural and environmentalscience and frequently used data from the Rotham-sted Experiments in his research, often in associa-tion with “Johnny” Johnston or Paul Poulton. He wasan enthusiastic participant in the SOMNET (Soil Or-

ganic Matter Network) evaluation of soil carbonmodels organised at Rothamsted in 1995 by PeteSmith and David Powlson. RothC was among ninemodels evaluated using data from long-term fieldexperiments worldwide. This activity was influentialin stimulating further global networking involvinglong term experiments and models.During the 1980s, working with David Powlson, PaulPoulton, Andy Macdonald, Margaret Glendining andnumerous others, he conducted research on nitrogendynamics in the crop/soil system, using 15N-labelledfertilizers in field experiments. As well as leading topractical results on fertilizer management to increaseefficiency of nitrogen use and decrease losses to theenvironment, this work drew attention to the signifi-cance of nitrogen deposition from the atmosphere inrain and as “dry” deposition of gases including ammo-nia and oxides of nitrogen. These inputs of nitrogen,which were not well recognised at the time, were sub-sequently measured directly by Keith Goulding andothers. David’s nitrogen research also formed the basisfor work on modelling of soil nitrogen dynamics in col-laboration with Jo Smith, Andy Whitmore and manyothers. This included research-oriented modelling andalso a practical decision support system to assist farm-ers in determining nitrogen fertilizer applications.Many scientists now in senior positions around theworld attest to the way in which David’s guidance andkindness at an early stage in their careers gave themdirection and inspiration. Many students and young sci-entists comment on their delight and surprise that sucha respected figure found time to listen to their researchplans and make constructive criticisms or assist them ininterpreting the meaning of their results. A conference “Soil Organic Matters” was held atRothamsted in 2009 to mark David’s contributionsto soil science research, and to emphasise currentdevelopments in the areas where he laid founda-tions. In 2008 the Jenkinson Building was opened;it house facilities for processing plant and soil sam-ples, soil physics laboratories and high grade con-trolled environment rooms.In addition to his scientific expertise, David was apolymath with an extensive knowledge of history,literature, music and the theatre. He also had agreat love for the countryside: he and his wife Moiraenjoyed walking in England and Ireland. They wereespecially fond of the countryside around theRothamsted Estate; Moira and his family haveplanted an “Irish Oak” (Quercuspetraea) in hismemory in the garden of Rothamsted Manor.

IUSS BULLETIN 11838

Dr. Armand Robert Henri Van Wambeke, age 84, aProfessor Emeritus at Cornell University, died Mon-day afternoon at Kendal at Ithaca. Dr. Van Wambekewas born on May 16, 1926 in Ghent, Belgium andenjoyed a rich and diverse professional career. Heworked for many organizations around the worldbefore he and his family settled down in Ithaca afterreceiving a position as Professor of InternationalSoils at Cornell University in 1976, which he helduntil his retirement in 1995.

Armand’s education was based in Ghent where hegraduated from the Royal High School in 1944, andstudied Tropical Agriculture at the University ofGhent from 1945 to 1949. He was also an accom-plished basketball player and represented his coun-try at the 1948 Olympics in London. After militaryservice in the Ordinance Corps, Armand worked asa soil surveyor in the Belgian Congo, Rwanda andBurundi from 1951 to 1960. This formed the basisfor his Doctorate dissertation at the University inGhent (1958) on the properties and classification ofsoils in the Kivu area, eastern Congo. This work wasexpanded in a 1974 publication for the FAO on themanagement of Ferralsols, the most highly-weath-ered and supposedly infertile soils of the tropics.

During this time, Armand and Francine had sevenchildren - Paul, Jan, Luc, Philippe, Annika, Carolineand Elisabeth. Armand assumed a number of assign-ments around the world: the University of theCongo (1960-61), the United Nations Food and Agri-culture Organization (Colombia 1961-64, Nepal1965), and the Belgian Center for Soil Survey (1965).He became acquainted with Cornell University dur-ing an interim position as International Professor in1966, after which he returned to Latin America asthe regional soil survey officer for the FAO, and in1970 to the University of Ghent to serve as projectleader for the soil survey program. His arrival at Cor-nell University in 1976 initiated a very productivephase as Professor of Tropical Soil Science.

He regularly traveled around the world in supportof soil survey and educational efforts and did twosabbaticals in Ghent. Armand made many contribu-tions to the field of soil science, especially on trop-ical soils and land evaluation. His language skills (fluent in Dutch, French, Eng-lish and Spanish) allowed him to effectively workin many international settings. He taught under-graduate and graduate students about tropicalsoils and his research contributed to their ap-praisal and classification. For ten years his groupsupported the international outreach of the USSoil Survey with a series of practical publicationson cartography, map unit names, evaluating thequality of soil surveys, and soil moisture and tem-perature regimes. He gained international recog-nition for his research in land evaluation and thedevelopment of a computer based expert systemwith his PhD student David Rossiter (ALES, Auto-mated Land Evaluation System, 1987), which isused around the world. He was an enthusiastic early adopter of any tech-nology that could improve his work, including per-sonal computers and geographical informationsystems. Towards the end of his career he wrote atextbook (1992) on the geography, properties andmanagement of tropical soils, which was later

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In Memoriam

Armand Van Wambeke1926-2011

adapted by the FAO (2003) to their new interna-tional soil classification. Armand was known for his great analytical mind andability to bring structure to the evaluation of com-plex soil systems. He took pride in challenging hisstudents to think both broadly and in depth. Hisreputation was that of a critical and demandingscholar and a fair and inspiring teacher. Armand enjoyed traveling from the moment hemarried his wife, Francine, and together they spenttheir honeymoon in the Democratic Republic of theCongo and it was at that point the family began todevelop an appreciation for world travel and learn-ing about different cultures. Dr. Van Wambeke willalways be remembered for his favorite sayings:

“To make progress in soil science one must go out-side of it;”

“I speak many languages, all equally badly;”

“There is only one acceptable quality of work, andthat is high quality;”

“We don’t want to be Dutch, we don’t want to beFrench, we definitely don’t want to be German, sowe are Belgian,”

and referring to his Olympic experience where Bel-gium was eliminated in the group stage despite win-ning three of five games,

“The important thing is not to win, it is to compete.”

Survivors include his wife of 60 years, Francine VanWambeke; six children, Paul (Christine) VanWambeke, Jan Van Wambeke, Dr. Philippe VanWambeke, Annika (Gordon) Black, and CarolineKinne, Elisabeth (Paul) Griep; twelve grandchildrenand two great-grandchildren; a brother, Andre VanWambeke; several nieces and nephews.

IUSS BULLETIN 11840

Prof. Dr.Dr.h.c. Arno Semmel, 81, died Sunday, Oc-tober 10, 2010 at his home in HofheimTaunus, Ger-many. Arno Semmel was an inspirationalgeomorphologist and soil geographer. The Germanscientific community holds him in high esteem as arenowned expert in quaternary geology, loessstratigraphy and pedology. Particularly his researchon periglacial cover beds, loess stratigraphy andpalaeosols has to be emphasized. Along with hismerits in fundamental research, he always made anextra effort to clarify and communicate the rele-vancy of his research to practice, and to fascinatelaymen about soils and geomorphology.Arno Semmel graduated from Rostock and East-Berlin with a degree in Geography. He received his

PhD in 1959 from the University of Frankfurt/Main.After his education, he worked for the Soil and Ge-ological Survey of Hesse, at that time called „Hes-sischesLandesamtfürBodenforschung“. During thattime, he developed the first practical cover bed clas-sification to describe the parent material of soil for-mation and designed the first soil map of Hesse at ascale of 1:25.000. In 1967, he received his habilita-tion from the University of Frankfurt/Main. Twoyears later, he joined the world-famous geomophol-ogist Julius Büdel at Würzburg University as assis-tant professor. He returned to the University ofFrankfurt/Main as full professor for Physical Geogra-phy in 1970 where he stayed until his retirement in1991. During this time, Arno Semmel wrote a num-ber of highly acknowledged text books, for example„Geomorphologie der Bundesrepublik Deutschland“(5th edition, Steiner), „Grundzüge der Bodengeogra-phie“ (3rd edition, Teubner), „Periglazialmorpholo-gie“(2nd edition, Wiss. Buchges.) and „Relief,Gestein, Boden“ (Wiss. Buchges.). All of them haveserved as benchmark books in Landscape SystemSciences for many generations of students.The scientific work of Arno Semmel was based onfield observations. His profound field experience isdocumented in nearly 300 publications. Most pa-pers address the role of genesis, composition andproperties of the regolith cover for soil formationand spatial distribution across landscapes. His re-search was inspired by numerous worldwide expedi-tions to the Artic, Spitzbergen, Canada andScandinavia as well as to the tropics, Africa andLatin America, although the home of his tremen-dous field experience has always been Central Eu-rope. Among others, his findings on the stratigraphyof loess and loess-paleosol sequences in Central Eu-rope are regarded as directive for future researchand are widely accepted throughout Europe. Afterretirement from university business Arno Semmeldedicated himself to research which he did withgreat success until only a few weeks before hisdeath. Pleistocene periglacial cover beds remaineda central topic of research during his lifetime. Until

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In Memoriam

Arno Semmel1929 - 2010

the very last moment, he was ready to impart hisprofound knowledge and experience to everyoneand enjoyed field-work and scientific discussionswherever he was.Arno Semmel has received numerous honors andawards and is a member of several scientific insti-tutions. These include honorary doctorate from theUniversity of Heidelberg for his outstanding re-search on the Quaternary stratigraphy of the mid-dle and upper rhine valley and his integrativeresearch approaches in Brazil and Ethiopia. TheGerman Quaternary Union (DEUQUA) awarded himwith the Albrecht-Penck-Medal for his dedicationand outstanding achievements. A particular concernof Arno Semmel was the education of school chil-dren in geography, to which he was vehementlycommitted to. From 1987 to 1989 he was chairmanof the VDGH and the German Geographic Society,from 1988 to 1991 he served as a senator of theGerman research foundation (DFG) and as represen-tative of the German geographers in the Alfred-We-gener-Foundation. He was chairman of theFrankfurter Geographic Society for many years andlifetime honorary chairman.In 2009 on the occasion of his 80th birthday, a oneweek anniversary excursion on ‘his topic’, the spatialdistribution and genesis of periglacial cover beds,was organized by former students and co-workersof Arno Semmel. The purpose of this trip was tohonor his scientific achievements and his extraordi-nary engagement in enlarging our understanding ofsoil geography from a field perspective. We will def-initely miss his presence and the intensive discus-sions on Quaternary geology, geomorphology andsoil science. The scientific community lost a promi-nent colleague and well-known scientist but thelasting memorial of his students and his work willalways remain.

Heinrich Thiemeyer, FrankfurtJürgen Heinrich, Leipzig

IUSS BULLETIN 11842

The Celebration of World Soil Day 2010 in Italy:The Perception of Soil

Soil performs unique roles for needs and wellbe-ing of human society. Looking at the increasinghuman pressure on it, frequently without regardto its preservation, is the soil importance recog-nized?

The Celebration of World Soil Day 2010 in Italy wasan important occasion to try to answer to thisquestion. To honour this yearly recurrence, on 2-3December 2010, the Italian Society of Pedology(SIPe), the Italian Society of Soil Science (SISS) andthe Chair of Pedology of the University of Palermo(chaired by Carmelo Dazzi), under the patronageof the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS),European Confederation of Soil Science Societies(ECSSS), European Society for Soil Conservation(ESSC) and the International Humic Substances So-ciety (IHSS), jointly organized in Palermo a two-daymeeting entitled “The Perception of Soil”. Themain aim of the convention was to investigate howthe soil is perceived in the different aspects of ourcontemporary society. To achieve this objective,the meeting was organized in 14 speeches of no-table speakers, invited to discuss about thepercep-tion of soil, in their own specific area of expertise,such as: soil regulations, environmental emergen-cies management and calamities prevention, urbanand landscape planning, finance and valuation,crops production, pedology, medical geology andjournalism, and in a Poster Session. The confer-ence was opened to researchers, teachers, stu-dents, managers, delegates of regional andnational institutions. In the Opening Ceremony,delegates of national and regional institutions andof scientific societies, supporting the event, wel-comed the conference and Carmelo Dazzi, coordi-nator of the organizing committees, inauguratedthe Celebration of World Soil Day 2010 and intro-duced the topic (Fig.).

The convenors, Nicola Senesi (President of SISS)and Fabio Terribile (President of SIPe), introduced

the invited speakers to make their speeches, open-ing the debate with the assembly.

At the end of the talks, a Service Awards Ceremonywas dedicated to retired professors that, with theirscientific careers, contribute to create and spreadthe soil culture in Italy, as: Angelo Aru, Paolo Bal-daccini, CorradoBuondonno, Giovanni Fierotti,Fiorenzo Mancini and FiorenzoUgolini. The firstmeeting day ended convivially with the social din-ner. The second day was dedicated partly to furthertalks, and to the Poster Session, in which PhD stu-dents and researchers exhibited their scientific ac-tivities in the Soil Science.

The choice of the specific theme “The Perception ofSoil” allowed us to discover so many different,sometimes unknown, perceptions of it, all accord-ing to the specific implications for human life andactivities involved. However, out of the strict scien-tific point of view, the soil is rarely recognizes as acomplex and living system. The conclusive remarksof the Celebration of World Soil Day 2010, concernthe knowledge of a widespread “no perception” ofthe soil in our society and of a unawareness of itsvitality, functions and complexity, out of the strictsoil science scientific area. For this reason, the finalofficial motion of the meeting asks, unanimously, amore active role of local and national institutionsto

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Reports of meetings

legislate, according to the european strategy, to pre-serve the soil resource and to cooperate to create,on regional and local scale, a strong cooperation netto support the environmental policies; to considerthe soil health and, in general, the environmentalquality as an valuable and countable factor planninginvestments and productive activities; to supportthe initiative to spread the soil culture also throughmass media, to sensitize the society of human im-pact on soil and its consequences.

Benedetta CamilliDipartimentodeiSistemi Agro-AmbientaliSAGA- UniversitàdegliStudi di PalermoViale delle Scienze90128 PalermoItalycamilli@unipa.it

IUSS BULLETIN 11844

Opening ceremony and Carmelo Dazzi’s introduction to the topic “The Perception of Soil” of World Soil Day 2010 in

Palermo (Italy)

Dealing with Contaminated Sites.From Theory towards Practical Ap-plication. Edited by Frank A. Swart-jes (National Institute of PublicHealth and the Environment, theNetherlands), Springer, Hardcover,1114 p., January 2011, ISBN 978-90-

481-9756-9. This standard work on contaminatedsite management covers the whole chain of stepsinvolved in dealing with contaminated sites, fromsite investigation to remediation. An importantfocus throughout the book has been on Humanhealth, Ecological and Groundwater-related Risk As-sessment. In addition, the book includes chapterson characterization of natural and urban soils, sam-pling, bioavailability, natural attenuation, policy andstakeholder viewpoints and Brownfields. Typically,the book includes in-depth theories on soil contam-ination, along with offering possibilities for practicalapplication. More than sixty of the world’s top ex-perts from Europe, the USA, Australia and Canadahave contributed to this book. The twenty-fivechapters in this book offer relevant information forexperienced scientists, students, consultants andregulators, as well as for ‘new players’ in contami-nated site management. For details see http://springer.com/978-90-481-9756-9.

Sulphur in Soils, Crops and Fer-tilisers – from research to practi-cal application. By Tandon, HLS.2011. ISBN: 81-85116-62-8. Pages204+x. Fertiliser Development andConsultation Organisation,204-204A Bhanot Corner, 1-2 PamposhEnclave, New Delhi 110 048

(India), email: fdco@airtelmail.infdco@vsnl.net-Price US$ 60 (inclusive of airmail delivery). This isthe 48th practical and reference book published byFDCO on various aspects of plant nutrients, fertiliz-ers and integrated nutrient management .This bookis a continuation of their efforts in providing techni-cally sound and easily understandable synthesis ofscientific information on plant nutrient sulphur (S)for practical use by various stake holders. The maintheme chapters in the book deal with (i) the role ofsulphur in plants and its deficiency symptoms, re-quirement by crops and their critical concentra-

tions,(ii) sulphur status of soils and the extent ofsulphur deficiencies,(iii) sulphur uptake by crops inrelation to yield, (iv) the effect of S application oncrop yield and produce quality,(v) interactions ofsulphur with other nutrients, (vi) sulphur manage-ment in cropping systems to assess the residual ef-fects, (vii) sulphur uptake, removal and balances,(viii) impact of continuous use of S-free fertilizerson crop productivity, (ix)economics of sulphur fer-tilization, (x) sulphur fertilizers- their characteris-tics, transformation, production and consumption,(xi)guidelines for sulphur management and practi-cal recommendations followed by an exhaustivelist of references and appendices. The easily read-able text is supported by a large number of tablesand diagrams.

Soil Fertility, Fertilisers and INM .By H.L.S. Tandon. 2011. ISBN: 81-85116-59-8. Pages 156+vi. FertiliserDevelopment and Consultation Or-ganisation, 204-204A Bhanot Cor-ner, 1-2 PamposhEnclave,NewDelhi 110 048 (India).

Email: fdco@airtelmail.infdco@vsnl.net PriceUS$ 60(inclusive of airmail delivery). This user-friendly dic-tionary by Dr HLS Tandon goes well beyond provid-ing definitions of terms as is usually done in aconventional dictionary. It can be considered as asource book which provides definitions and elabo-rated explanations with examples in simple Englishof the most important terms in soil fertility-chem-istry, nutrient management, agronomy, fertilizertrade and integrated nutrient management (INM)covering all major and micro plant nutrients, con-ventional fertilisers, micronutrient carriers, special-ity fertilisers, liquid fertilizers, organic manures,composts, biofertilisers etc. The elaborate coverageis illustrated by the fact that nearly 30 aspects arediscussed under the generic term nutrient rangingfrom nutrient availability to nutrient uptake. Underthe main heading of Soil, about 40 terms/descrip-tors are discussed ranging from soil acidity to soiltesting. Similarly under, compost the aspects dis-cussed are compost accelerators, compost enrich-ment and compost preparation. The text issupported by several tables and diagrams.This

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New Publications

sourcebook-cum dictionary is expected to be ahandy and useful ready reference book for all thosewho are interested in soil and crop managementthrough the integrated management of plant nutri-ents through diverse sources, whether mineral, or-ganic or microbial.

Suelos de la Región Pampeana.Procesos de Formación. By: PerlaAmanda Imbellone, Jorge EloyGiménez and José Luis Panigatti.Ediciones INTA. Buenos Aires, Ar-gentina. 2010. 320 pp. ISBN: 978-987-1623-40-2 (In Spanish).

The Pampean Region covers an area of about600.000 km2. Its soils, largely formed in loess sed-iments, are the most fertile of Argentina and aremainly used as cropland or for livestock raising.The book describes in five chapters the main pe-dogenic processes operating in the Region:melanization, illimerization (argilluviation), hydro-morphism, vertisolization and sodification, salin-ization, plus an introductory chapter on generalaspects of pedogenic processes. Each chapter in-cludes the genesis of the process, the influence ofthe soil-forming factors, the macro- and micromor-phological, physical, chemical and mineralogicalproperties which reflect the process, the classifi-cation of the soils according to different systems(mainly Soil Taxonomy and WRB) and their distri-bution in the Region. Finally, applied aspects arediscussed such as limitations for different uses,degradation evidences and recommended man-agement practices. The description of theprocesses is largely based on information fromlocal research works. The book includes tables,graphs, maps and colour photographs of soil pro-files and associated landscapes. It is addressedmainly to researchers, educators and students insoil science and related disciplines. To order see: libreria@correo.inta.gov.ar

Is it possible for the World Soils tofeed 9 billions of Humans ? LesSols du Monde pourront-ilsnourrir9 milliards d’humains. French pub-lication ByYves Coquet and AlainRuellan. Le Pommier Editions,Paris, 2010. ISSN 1625-1245 ISBN978-2-7465-0463-9.

Can the world soils feed 9 billion human beings?That is the question to which Yves Coquet and Alain

Ruellan try to formulate an answer, in a small andshort book, that is meant for a large public to dis-cover, at the same time, what are the soils and theirfunctions and how soils have to be better knownand used. Why this book? First because it is clearthat this question is an accute high préoccupationof the world. Secondly, because today more andmore answers are given without taking the soils inconsideration. Thirdly, it is urgent that soil scientistsgive their opinion about this question; to find solu-tions, soils and their diversity have to be taken inconsideration.

The Soils of Southern South Aus-tralia. Hall, James (Ed); Maschmedt,David; Billing, Bruce. Governmentof South Australia. 2009, 446 pp.Hardcover. ISSN: 0016-7673; ISBN:978-1-9215-2816-3. A comprehensive and beautifully

presented reference on the geology, nature, distri-bution, management, use, conservation, potentialand limitations of South Australian soils. The bookcontains previously unpublished informationsourced from over two-decades of field-based sci-entific endeavour. It describes the soil resources ofSouth Australia’s non-arid zone; summarises con-cepts, issues and data specifically relating to soiltype; and includes numerous colour maps, graphsand data tables, together with colour photographsof soil profiles and associated landscapes, an ex-tensive introduction, and comprehensive appen-dices. The book is designed to complementAustralian Soils and Landscapes (McKenzie et al.2004) - providing more detail for a productive anddiverse part of the Australian continent. Soils arecategorised into 15 groups and 61 subgroups basedon features of most importance to land use andmanagement in South Australia. 61 representativesoil profiles are shown with full classifications ac-cording to The Australian Soil Classification (Isbell2002). The book is intended to build interest in,and knowledge and understanding of, our precioussoil resources for improved natural resource man-agement and land-use decision making; is de-signed to assist farmers, grape-growers,wine-makers, irrigators, planners, ecologists, re-searchers, policy-makers, educators and students;and should appeal to anyone with an interest inour key natural resource assets. To order see:www.environment.sa.gov.au/dwlbc/land/soil

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TUSEC - Technique for Soil Evaluation and Catego-rization for Natural and Anthropogenic Soils. By: An-dreas Lehmann, Susanne David and Karl Stahr.Publisher: Hohenheim University, Institute for SoilScience and Land Evaluation, 2010. The “TUSEC-book” is an innovative manual for soil evaluation inthe temperate zone, comprising an English and a Ger-man version in one volume. New and innovative arethe explicit consideration of anthropogenic soils withthe TUSEC-evaluation and the differentiation of theevaluation system into two evaluation methods fordifferent levels of detail. The publication starts witha short retrospection on soil evaluation and an intro-duction to the background of soil functions. More-over, the restrictions and possibilities of schematicmethods for soil evaluation are highlighted in somedetail. A glossary is also added to the text. Accordingto the different levels of detail of the methods, thebook is partitioned into two parts. The first part fo-cuses on exact evaluation which requires the input ofprimary soil data and some additional information.The second part comprises a low input method forsoil evaluation for overview purposes basing on theinput of secondary soil data and further information.Such secondary data are e.g. information read outfrom hydrological maps, building ground maps, butalso information about the transport of soil material.Both, the part describing the detailed method andthe part showing the overview method, are again di-vided in chapters with step-by-step descriptions ofmethods for the evaluation of the widely known soilfunctions. Every of these chapters are introducedwith principal explanations on the according soilfunctions and descriptions of the specifities of themethod are given. Thereby, details on the method-ological extensions which are necessary for the eval-uation of anthropogenic soils are highlighted. Thebook comprising 217 pages is published as volume 86in the “Hohenheimer Bodenkundliche Hefte” andcould be ordered by mail to kstahr@uni-hohen-heim.de or by fax to +49 711 4592 3117. The price in-cluding shipment is 10,50 EUR.

A Practical Guide to Geostatisti-cal Mapping is a FREE book byTom Hengl. It uses R+gstat/geoR,SAGA GIS and Google Earthcombo of software packages. Itincludes seven diverse dataanalysis exercises. Materials pre-

sented in this book have been used for the five-dayadvanced training course “GEOSTAT: spatio-tempo-

ral data analysis with R+SAGA+Google Earth”, thatis periodically organized by the author and collabo-rators. Visit http://spatial-analyst.net/book/ to ob-tain a digital copy of the book and R scripts / datasets used. This is an Open Access Publication.

Philip’s Atlas of the World. (RRP£75), Published 4th October2010, ISBN: 9781849071222. Theworld is facing a serious threat ofa food shortage within the next60 years, global food reserves areat their lowest for 30 years and

with the population soaring, expected to reach 9 bil-lion by 2050, there will be an extra 2.5 billions peo-ple to feed. This combined with our demand formore meat and variety of fresh produce in our dietis putting a huge pressure on ever diminishing re-sources. The new Philip’s Atlas of the World, pub-lished on October 4th in association with the RoyalGeographical Society is the ultimate, top of therange atlas for personal and professional use. Com-pletely updated and revised, it is packed with spec-tacular satellite images of the earth, a detailed andinformative World Geography section, maps andcity-centre plans for 69 of the world’s largest andmost economically important cities, plus world sta-tistics and a glossary of geographical terms. It par-ticular, it looks in detail at the increasing threat toFood Security in a fascinating article written exclu-sively for Philip’s by a team led by Keith Goulding.To order see: www.philips-maps.co.uk

Trace Elements in Soils and Plants,Fourth Edition, by Alina Kabata-Pen-dias, Institute of Soil Science and PlantCultivation, Pulawy, Poland. CRCPress. ISBN: 9781420093681. Thishighly anticipated fourth edition of

the bestselling Trace Elements in Soils and Plantsreflects the explosion of research during the pastdecade regarding the presence and actions of traceelements in the soil-plant environment. The bookprovides information on the biogeochemistry ofthese elements and explores how they affect foodquality. Incorporating data from over 1500 new re-sources, this edition includes the most up-to-dateinformation on the relationship of trace elementsto topics such as: Soil natural/background contents,Sorption/desorption processes, Anthropogenic im-pact and soil phytoremediation, Phytoavailabilityand functions in plants, Contents of food plants.

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The book discusses the assessment of thenatural/background content of trace elements insoil, bioindication of the chemical status of envi-ronmental compartments, soil remediation, and hy-peraccumulation and phytoextraction of tracemetals from the soil. The table of contents reflectsthe IUPAC’s recommendation for numbering ele-ment groups, giving the new edition an updated or-ganizational flow.

Growth and Mineral Nutrition ofField Crops, Third Edition, byNand Kumar Fageria, EMBRAPA,San Antonio de Goias, GO,Brazil; Virupax, Baligar, USDA/ARSSPCL, Beltsville, MD, USA; CharlesAllan Jones, Texas A&M Univer-sity, Dallas, USA. CRC Press.ISBN: 9781439816950.

By the year 2050, the world’s population is ex-pected to reach nine billion. To feed and sustainthis projected population, world food productionmust increase by at least 50 percent on much of thesame land that we farm today. To meet this stag-gering challenge, scientists must develop the tech-nology required to achieve an “evergreen”revolution — one that increases crop productivitywithout degrading natural resources. With 30 per-cent new material, the updated and revised thirdedition of Growth and Mineral Nutrition of FieldCrops covers all aspects of crop growth and mineralnutrition that contribute to sustainable, high-yieldagriculture. Bringing together international scien-tific knowledge of crop production and the impactsof agriculture on the environment, this book: In-cludes two new chapters on remediation of heavy-metal contaminated soils and cover crops; Coverstheoretical and practical aspects of mineral nutri-tion of field crops; Provides recommendations forjudicious use of fertilizers, which will reduce costof crop production and enhance high crop yieldswithout risking environmental pollution; Providesgrowth patterns for annual crops and forages; In-cludes a handful of color pictures of nutrient defi-ciencies for easy diagnostic purposes. To make thebook as practical as possible, each chapter is sup-ported by experimental results and extensive ref-erences. A large number of figures and tables arealso included to save readers time when research-ing. The overall emphasis of this reference is on thesoil’s ability to sustain high crop yields and ahealthy human population.

Facts About Global Warming.Rational or Emotional Issue? ByKutílek, Miroslav and Nielsen,Donald R., 2010, 227 pp. Essaysin GeoEcology, Catena VerlagGMBH, Reiskirchen, Germany.ISBN 978-3-923381-58-6, USISBN 1-59326-242-0. Price 45.00€ + mailing costs. The book is an

essay about a politically abused problem which isnot only a subject of climatologists but of utmostinterest for researchers in the fields of Soil Science,Hydrology and Environmental Science dealing withthe principles of sustaining life on our planet. In aneasily understandable presentation the authors dis-cuss comprehensive reports and peer-reviewed sci-entific publications on global warming, and howtemperature of earlier time is estimated when ther-mometers did not exist. The underestimation oftemperature of the Medieval Warm Period in manyclimatologic studies is critically reported. Statingthat greenhouse effect is not the dominant cause ofthe recent climate change, the authors explain therole of eight factors acting upon the climate in thegeological history of planet Earth. They show thatclimate change was important in man´s evolutionand in the development and crisis of civilizations.They do not consider the recent magnitude andspeed of warming as a signal of an approaching ca-tastrophe. Their analyses of analogical warming os-cillations in the Holocene are found not to bedangerous for life, but quite the opposite. The cat-astrophic scenarios of approaching disasters causedby global warming are rationally rejected at the end.To order the book contact Catena Verlag, Ärmel-gasse 11, D-35447 Reiskirchen, Germany, cate-naverl@aol.com, or see www.catena-verlag.de

Soil Enzymology. Series: Soil Biology,Vol. 22. Shukla, Girish; Varma, Ajit(Eds.) 1st Edition., 2011, XVI, 385 p.,Hardcover. ISBN: 978-3-642-14224-6.Soil enzymes are one of the vital keymediators involved in nutrient recy-cling and the decomposition of or-

ganic matter and thereby in maintaining soil qualityand fertility. This Soil Biology volume covers the var-ious facets of soil enzymes, such as their functions,biochemical and microbiological properties and thefactors affecting their activities. Enzymes in the rhi-zosphere, in forest soils, and in volcanic ash-derivedsoils are described. Soil enzymes covered include

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phosphohydrolases, lignocellulose-degrading en-zymes, phenol oxidases, fungal oxidoreductases,keratinases, pectinases, xylanases, lipases and pecti-nases. Several chapters treat the soil enzymatic ac-tivities in the bioremediation of soils contaminatedwith pesticides and pollutants such as oil, chlori-nated compounds, synthetic dyes and aromatic hy-drocarbons. The role of soil enzymes asbioindicators is a further important topic addressed.

Actualización en métodos ytécnicas para el estudio de lossuelos afectados por incendiosforestales. Title in English:Review of methods andtechniques for the study of soilsaffected by forest fires. Edited byArtemi Cerdà (University of

Valencia) and Antonio Jordán (University of Seville).Published by FUEGORED and Cátedra de Divulgacióde la Ciència (University of Valencia) ISBN: 978-84-370-7887-8. More than 50 authors have worked inthis book, edited by A. Cerdà and A. Jordán. Thispublication reviews methods and techniques for thestudy of soils affected by forest fires, includingstudies in the long, medium and short term. Newapproaches are included and some classicalmethods are updated. Each chapter provideslaboratory and field, as well as examples of theirapplication and interpretation of results. The bookis divided into four sections, besides introductionand conclusions. These sections are dedicated to: i)the hydrological and erosive processes in areasaffected by forest fires, paying attention toaggregate stability, soil water repellency and soilerosion studies at different scales; ii) the impact inchemical and physical properties of soils, includingnew approaches as NIR methodologies applied tothe study of burning temperatures, the study ofimpacts in organic substances, acidity and otherchemical properties, as well as the assessment ofashes; iii) methods and techniques for studying theimpact of forest fires in ecosystems, post-firehydrogeomorphological monitoring, image analysis,the assessment of changes in plant communitiesand the use of spectroradiometry as a tool for thestudy of fire severity; and iv) methods of studyingthe effects of wildfires in biochemical andmicrobiological properties. The text is aimed atSpanish language speaker students and researchersin the area of fire-affected soils, soil science,ecology and environmental sciences, as well as

national and international policy makers and anumber of organizations dealing withenvironmental protection and management ofnatural resources.

Food Security and Soil Quality. Ed-ited by: Rattan Lal, The Ohio StateUniversity, Columbus, USA ; B.A.Stewart, West Texas A&M Univer-sity, Canyon, USA. Series: Ad-vances in Soil Science. CRC Press.ISBN: 9781439800577. Just fiveyears ago, it was generally be-lieved that the number of food in-

secure people in the world was on continuousdecline. Unfortunately, widespread soil degradationalong with resistance to recommended agronomicpractices, and little attempt to restore degraded soilshave conspired with significant droughts (in regionsthat could least tolerate them) to swell the ranks ofthe food insecure to over a billion people. The U.N.Millennium Development Goals’ intent to halvehunger by 2015 will not be realized. Food Securityand Soil Quality brings together leading experts fromacross the world to provide a concise and factuallysupported exploration of the problem at hand andthe critical steps needed to reverse it. This book doesprovide policymakers and others with an understand-ing of the depth, complexity, and immediacy of thiscrisis, but more than a call to action, it also offers soilscientists working in this area with an understandingof what is being done and what needs to be done.Most importantly, this book helps us understand thatthe situation is not beyond remediation were we toact with great resolve and a sense of urgency.

Soil Quality and Biofuel Produc-tion. Edited by: Rattan Lal, TheOhio State University, Colum-bus, USA ; B.A. Stewart, WestTexas A&M University, Canyon,USA. Series: Advances in Soil Sci-ence. CRC Press. ISBN:9781439800737. In eight con-cise chapters, Soil Quality and

Biofuel Production presents a state-of-the-knowl-edge review of soil properties and processes nega-tively impacted by crop residue removal. It outlinesthe ecological consequences of biofuels and evalu-ates land use in the production of raw material forbiofuel. The book then spotlights pressing issues re-lated to corn and cellulosic ethanol and also soil

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erosion. It offers advice for achieving economic bal-ance in the competition for arable land betweenfood and biofuel along with residue harvest man-agement techniques. A thought-provoking discus-sion of the opportunities and challenges thatbiofuel presents rounds out the book’s coverage.The logistics of producing biomass in a sustainablemanner remain a major challenge and will continueto be so for the foreseeable future. Serious ques-tions linger concerning viable sources of biofuelfeedstock, competition for resources needed to pro-duce biomass, and energy output/input ratios. SoilQuality and Biofuel Production provides environ-mental scientists and agricultural engineers with theknowledge they need to address them.

Pictorial Atlas of Soil and SeedFungi: Morphologies of Cul-tured Fungi and Key toSpecies,Third Edition. TsuneoWatanabe, Institute for Biolog-ical Resources and Functions,National Institute of AdvancedIndustrial Science and Technol-

ogy (AIST), Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. CRC Press. ISBN:9781439804193. Dr. Watanabe describes all fungialphabetically under the orders of Oomycota, Zy-gomycota, Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, andAnamorphic (Deuteromycetous) fungi. For eachgenus, he includes type species, references, mor-phology, and materials. Morphologies of culturedfungi are briefly described and illustrated togetherwith the description of the isolation sources andmethods. The book illustrates all fungi alongsidemorphologies and colonies of their fresh agar cul-tures or dried specimens, providing ready access tomorphologically similar fungi for quick comparison.Most of the fungi are isolated from soil, plant roots,and seeds, and the rest are from wood-inhabitingfruiting bodies, their spores, or the spore-like struc-tures associated with them. They are mostly col-lected in Japan, but some are from the DominicanRepublic, Paraguay, Switzerland, and Taiwan, R.O.C.

The Black EarthEcological Princi-ples for Sustainable Agriculture onChernozem Soils. Series: Interna-tional Year of Planet Earth, Vol. 10.Krupenikov, IgoriArcadie,Boincean, Boris P., Dent, David.

Springer, 2011, X, 190 p. Hardcover. ISBN: 978-94-007-0158-8. €99.95. Soil is the Earth’s living skin.

It provides anchorage for roots, holds water longenough for plants to make use of it and the nutri-ents that sustain life – otherwise the Earth wouldbe as barren as Mars. It is home to myriad micro-organisms and armies of microscopic animals aswell as the familiar earthworm that accomplishbiochemical transformations from fixing atmos-pheric nitrogen to recycling wastes; it receivesand process all fresh water, provides the founda-tions for our built environment; and comprisesthe biggest global carbon store that we know howto manage. This book is about the best soil in theworld - the black earth or chernozem: how it isbeing degraded by farming and how it may befarmed sustainably. Industrialisation of farminghas laid bare contradictions between the unfor-giving laws of ecology and economics. Soil organicmatter is the fuel that powers soil systems andthe cement that holds the soil together – and inplace – but agriculture is burning it up faster thanit is being formed: even the chernozem cannotlong survive this treatment. Here is the evidencefor this trend and, based on long-term field ex-periments, ecological principles for sustainableagriculture that can reverse the trend and, at thesame time, feed the world. Unlike other volumesin the series, this is not an edited collection of sci-entific papers.

Ecological Aspects of NitrogenMetabolism in Plants. Joe C. Po-lacco, Christopher D. Todd, ISBN:978-0-8138-1649-4, Hardcover,448 pages, March 2011. Price€156.00. Ecological Aspects ofNitrogen Acquisition exploresnot only how plants compete for

nitrogen in complex ecological communities Thebook also looks in greater detail at the associationsplants recruit with other organisms, ranging fromsoil microbes to arthropods, as nitrogen acquisitionstrategies, and how these contribute to individualand evolutionary fitness. The book is divided intofour sections, each addressing an important set ofrelationships of plants with the environment andhow this impacts the plant’s ability to compete suc-cessfully for nitrogen, often the most growth-limit-ing nutrient. Ecological Aspects of NitrogenAcquisition provides thorough coverage of this im-portant topic, and will be a vitally important re-source for plant scientists, agronomists, andecologists.

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Handbook of Erosion Modelling.Roy P. C. Morgan (Editor), MarkNearing (Editor), ISBN: 978-1-4051-9010-7, Hardcover, 416pages, December 2010, Wiley-Blackwell. Price €102.00. Themovement of sediment and asso-

ciated pollutants over the landscape and into waterbodies is of increasing concern with respect to pol-lution control, prevention of muddy floods and en-vironmental protection. In addition, the loss of soilon site has implications for declining agriculturalproductivity, loss of biodiversity and decreasedamenity and landscape value. The fate of sedimentand the conservation of soil are important issues forland managers and decision-makers. In developingappropriate policies and solutions, managers andresearchers are making greater use of erosion mod-els to characterise the processes of erosion andtheir interaction with the landscape. A study of ero-sion requires one to think in terms of microsecondsto understand the mechanics of impact of a singleraindrop on a soil surface, while landscapes formover periods of thousands of years. These processesoperate on scales of millimetres for single raindropsto mega-metres for continents. Erosion modellingthus covers quite a lot of ground. This book intro-duces the conceptual and mathematical frame-works used to formulate models of soil erosion anduses case studies to show how models are appliedto a variety of purposes at a range of spatial andtemporal scales. The aim is to provide land man-agers and others with the tools required to select amodel appropriate to the type and scale of erosionproblem, to show what users can expect in terms ofaccuracy of model predictions and to provide an ap-preciation of both the advantages and limitations ofmodels. Problems covered include those arisingfrom agriculture, the construction industry, pollu-tion and climatic change and range in scale fromfarms to small and large catchments.

Soil Carbon Dynamics. An Inte-grated Methodology. Edited by:Werner L. Kutsch, Michael Bahn,Andreas Heinemeyer. Hardback,ISBN: 9780521865616, 2010.Cambridge UP 298 pages. Carbonstored in soils represents the

largest terrestrial carbon pool and factors affectingthis will be vital in the understanding of future at-mospheric CO2 concentrations. This book provides

an integrated view on measuring and modeling soilcarbon dynamics. Based on a broad range of in-depth contributions by leading scientists it gives anoverview of current research concepts, develop-ments and outlooks and introduces cutting-edgemethodologies, ranging from questions of appropri-ate measurement design to the potential applica-tion of stable isotopes and molecular tools. Itincludes a standardised soil CO2 efflux protocol,aimed at data consistency and inter-site compara-bility and thus underpins a regional and global un-derstanding of soil carbon dynamics. This bookprovides an important reference work for studentsand scientists interested in many aspects of soilecology and biogeochemical cycles, policy makers,carbon traders and others concerned with theglobal carbon cycle.

Soil Atlas of the Czech Republic.Edited by Josef Kozak, CzechUniversity of informationLife Sci-ences, Prague 2010, 150 p. hard-cover, ISBN: 978-80-213-2028-4.The book involves in the intro-ductory part and principle infor-mation, concerning soil

functions, its degradation and contamination, en-dangered areas, soil survey, digital soil mapping, soilrating, modelling and GIS demonstrated on 66 fig-ures. Predominant part of the publication is devotedto the taxonomic classification system of the CzechRepublic, compared with WRB and to soil maps. Itincludes 71 pictures of soil profiles, micromorpho-logical features, moisture regimes and tables ofprincipal diagnostic properties. Presented are mapof soil associations dominants at scale 1:250.000,parent materials at 1:500.000, geomorphologicalsoil regions 1:500.000 and soil regions in the SOTERsystem at scale 1:1 million.

Physical Soil Mechanics. Series:Ad-vances in Geophysical and Environ-mental Mechanics and Mathematics.Gudehus, Gerd. 1st Edition., 2011,XIII, 840 p. 1000 illus., Hardcover.ISBN: 978-3-540-36353-8. Price

199,95 €. Soil is matter in its own right. Its naturecan be captured by means of monotonous, cyclicand strange attractors. Thus material properties aredefined by the asymptotic response of sand- andclay-like samples to imposed deformations andstresses. This serves to validate and calibrate

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elastoplastic and hypoplastic relations with com-parative plots. Extensions capture thermal and seis-mic activations, limitations occur due tolocalizations and skeleton decay.Attractors in thelarge characterize boundary value problems frommodel tests via geotechnical operations up to tec-tonic evolutions. Validations of hypoplastic calcu-lations are shown with many examples, possiblefurther applications are indicated in detail. This ap-proach is energetically justified and limited by crit-ical points where the otherwise legitimatecontinuity gets lost by localization and decay. Youwill be fascinated by the fourth element althoughor just as it is so manifold.

Soil Mechanics Lab Manual2e. by Michael E. Kalinski, ISBN978-0-470-55683-2, 2011. Pa-perback, 208 pages. Price€61.60. Soil Mechanics LabManual prepares readers toenter the field with a collec-tion of the most common soil

mechanics tests. The procedures for all of thesetests are written in accordance with applicableAmerican Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM)standards. Each chapter in the manual describesone test. Instructor may choose to combine morethan one test during a given laboratory session. Forexample, the moisture content and specific gravitylaboratory exercises are relatively short, so it wouldbe reasonable to combine these exercises into onethree-hour laboratory period. Laboratory exercisesand data sheets are included at the end of eachchapter. Brief video demonstrations are availableonline for each of the laboratory experiments de-scribed in this manual. Each demonstration includesa brief background of the test, required equipment,and step-by-step procedure for the measurementand reduction of experimental data. Data sheets arewritten to be used for practical purposes as well aseducational purposes, with places to insert informa-tion regarding project, boring number, and soil Re-covery Depth/Method. The procedures for all of thetests described in this manual are written in accor-dance with applicable American Society for Testingand Materials (ASTM) standards. It is important tobe familiar with these standards to under-stand, in-terpret, and properly apply laboratory results ob-tained using a standardized method. Each testdescribed in this manual has an associated ASTMstandard number.

Remote Sensing of Soil Saliniza-tion. Impact on Land Manage-ment. Edited by GracielaMetternicht and Alfred Zinck. CRCPress, Francis & Taylor Group,2009, 377 pp. Catalog no. 65025.ISBN: 978-1-4200-6502-2. Provid-ing an overview of soil salinity as-

sessment using remote sensing technologies, thisbook analyzes basic issues of remote detection,such as the spectral behavior of salt type and vege-tation influence. Each remote sensing platform isevaluated for its advantages and disadvantages. In-ternational contributors present the latest techno-logical developments and image classificationtechniques used to detect and map land degrada-tion caused by soil salinization. An accompanyingCD-ROM includes color images.

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IUSS Honorary members

Year Member Country Year Member Country

1924 L. Cayeux † France K. Glinka † USSR Jos. Kopecky † Czechoslovakia E. Ramann † Germany Sir John Russell † UK S. Winogradski † USSR

1927 P. Treitz † Hungary 1935 E.A. Mitscherlich † Germany

A. d’Sigmond † Hungary J. Stoklasa † Czechoslovakia G. Wiegner † Switzerland

1950 A. Demolon † France D.J. Hissink † Netherlands W.P. Kelley † USA

1954 S. Mattson † Sweden E. Truog † USA

1956 G. Bertrand † France E.C.J. Mohr † Netherlands

1960 F.A. Bear † USA 1964 J.A. Prescott † Australia 1968 F. Hardy † UK

W.L. Kubiena † Germany L.A. Richards † USA A.A. Rode † USSR

1974 R. Bradfield † USA G.V. Jacks † UK Ch.E. Kellogg † USA M.K. Kononova † USSR A. Oudin † France F. Scheffer † Germany

1978 G. Barbier † France V. Ignatieff † Canada Y. Ishizuka † Japan L. Krolikowski † Poland L. Vettori † Brazil

1982 Ph. Duchaufour † France W. Flaig † Germany V. Kovda † USSR E. Mueckenhausen † Germany E.W. Russell † UK

1986 H. Jenny † USA D. Kirkham † USA S.K. Mukherjee † India R. Tavernier † Belgium

1990 G. Aubert † France E.G. Hallsworth † Australia J.S. Kanwar India P. Schachtschabel † Germany R.W. Simonson † USA I. Szabolcs † Hungary

1998 G. H. Bolt Netherlands R. Dudal Belgium K.H. Hartge Germany M. Kutilek Czech Rep. J. Quirk Australia W.G. Sombroek † Netherlands K. Wada Japan D.H. Yaalon Israel S.V. Zonn † Russia

2002 R.W. Arnold USA G.V. Dobrovolsky Russia W. Gardner USA H.M. Hamdi † Egypt L.A.L. Sarmiento Colombia F. Mancini Italy B.S. Nosko Ukraine R. Rosell Argentina A. Ruellan France A. Tanaka Japan P.B.H Tinker UK

2006 W.E.H. Blum AustriaH-P. Blume GermanyJ. Bouma NetherlandsS-J. Cho South KoreaJ. Glinski PolandM.G.H. Jamagne FranceD.R. Nielsen USAJ.H.V. van Baren † NetherlandsL.P. Wilding USA

2010 C. Feller FranceK. Kumazawa JapanK. Kyuma JapanJ. Ryan SyriaB.A. Stewart USAV. Targulian RussiaG. Varallyay HungaryJ.S.P. Yadav † India