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On-line
activity report of the division 4 of IUSS
Prof
E Frossard
IUSS
Division IV Chair
Eschikon,
May 2005
On
the 28th of October 2004, while taking part in the European
Workshop “Scientific basis for the management of European
soil resources” in
Vienna
, Michel Robert secretary of the commission 4.1 passed away.
Besides his research, Michel Robert worked a lot in his last
years to improve the relationships between soil science and
politics at the French and European levels. This is why we
particularly welcomed his participation in division 4. The
division 4 presents its sincere condolences to his family
and his friends
(http://www.iuss.org/popup/Michel%20Robert.htm).
1.
Activities
since Bangkok 2002
a.
Organization
level
Two business meetings have been held with
representatives of most of the commissions: the first in
November 2002, during the ASA meeting in
Indianapolis
and the second in November 2003 during the ASA meeting in
Denver
.
The first meeting in 2002 was used to formulate the
mission statements and objectives of the division and of its
5 commissions. A “division 4” strategy was also
developed after this meeting. We decided to focus our
activity on "promoting interdisciplinary discussions
between soil scientists, our colleagues in other scientific
disciplines, policy-makers, and concerned citizens on the
role of soils in sustaining society and the
environment". This will be done at 3 levels. At the
level of the division this will be achieved by organizing
meetings where general topics linked to soils will be
treated in an interdisciplinary manner.
At the level of each commission this aim will be
achieved by organizing more specific meetings. And finally
we can be approached to identify appropriate persons for
giving any necessary inputs, for instance in other ICSU
bodies.
The second meeting focused on the ongoing activities
and on the planning of the next WCSS.
Following the last IUSS executive committee meeting
(London 2003), Prof E Steinnes, chairman of the “working
group soils and geomedecine”, was contacted to evaluate if
he would be willing to affiliate his WG to division 4. Prof
Steinnes showed a strong interest in this. Since the
division 4 has a commission “Soils food security and human
health” (C4.2) it was suggested to Prof Steinnes to
affiliate his WG to C 4.2.
b.
Communication
A division 4 web site has been established within the
IUSS web site (http://www.iuss.org/division4/index.htm).
Please communicate any relevant information (publications,
links…) to be put on the site to
E Frossard
(emmanuel.frossard@ipw.agrl.ethz.ch).
Articles have been published in the bulletins of the
IUSS, of the Swiss Society of Soil Science, of the CSA, of
the IUHPS and of the newsletters of C4.4 and C4.5 to explain
the aim of div 4 and/or of its commissions.
.
Meetings
and other activities (chronological order)
November 2002
A
joint symposium of the C 4.5 and the SSSA S 205.1 was
organized during the ASA meeting in
Indianapolis
. It was entitled "Aspects of Soil Science History
Philosophy and Sociology" and 7 papers were presented.
March
2003
Pam
Hazelton (C 4.4) gave the keynote address at the Nature
Conservation Council of New South Wales' Conference "Ancient
Soils -New Solutions".
June 2003
Mireille
Dosso (C4.4) participated in organizing the meeting for Soil
Education (“L’éducation
au sol” for AFES (Association Française pour
l’Etude des Sol), in
Paris
. The meeting was supported both by the French
Academy
of
Agriculture
and the Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development.
Stephen Nortcliff (IUSS Secretary General), Pamela Hazelton
(from IUSS C4.4), and Alain Ruellan (2nd Past President of
IUSS) were invited to give talks.
July
2003
Emmanuel
Frossard (D 4), Darren Baldwin and Ben Turner organized a
meeting entitled: “Organic Phosphorus Characterization and Transformations in the
Environment” in Ascona (
Switzerland
); 60 participants (soil scientists, agronomists,
limnologists, ecologists, chemists etc) from all over the
world took part. A book gathering contributions of the
invited speakers has been published (Turner B, Frossard E ad
Baldwin DS Editors 2004 Organic phosphorus in the
environment, CABI; http://www.cabi-publishing.org/Bookshop/BookDisplay.asp?SubjectArea=&PID=1793
July 2003
Lars
Bergstrom (C4.1) and Charles Rice (C4.2) participated to the
XII world Congress of the International Union of Food
Science and Technology in
Chicago
. The
presentation given by L Bergrstrom can be downloaded at the
following internet address:
www.pe.ipw.agrl.ethz.ch/research/Conf_pres/Bergstrom_2003_IUFoST_Chicago.pdf
October 2003
E Frossard
took part as representative of IUSS in the 2nd meeting of
the research group of the soil thematic strategy of the
European Union in Wageningen.
November 2003
Division
4 of IUSS and Divisions S-11 and S-5 of SSSA co-sponsored in
a symposium at the American Society of Agronomy meeting in
Denver entitled “Carbon Sequestration by Soils: A Global
Perspective on the Underlying Science and Emerging National
Policies”. Invited speakers in the symposium included:
Christian Feller IRD, CIRAD; David Powlson,
IACR‑Rothamsted; Keith Paustian, Colorado State
University; and Carlos Monreal, Agriculture and
Agri‑Food Canada. A volunteer poster session on carbon
sequestration followed the symposium. The oral session
attracted more than 200 participants! The overheads
presented by the invited speakers can be downloaded from:
www.pe.ipw.agrl.ethz.ch/research/Conf_pres
November
2003
Commission
4.5 contributed to the organization of a technical session
on the history of soil science with the SSSA Council on
History, Philosophy and Sociology of Soil Science at the ASA
meeting in Denver in November 2003 that was well attended.
The presentations on soil classification history drew over
50 people. The joint SSSA/IUSS History of Soil Science Book
“Down to earth: a soil science history” remained a major
activity of this commission during the past year. Most of
the chapters are in the final revision stages. The outline
of the book is given in the annex of this report. The
cooperation between C 5.4 and the Division of History of
Science of the International Union of the History and
Philosophy of Science is going forward by preparing
bibliographies of science in different fields.
Mireille Dosso (C4.4) prepared a newsletter for
Commission 4.4. It can be downloaded from the following
internet address: www.pe.ipw.agrl.ethz.ch/research/Conf_pres/IUSSC44_Newsletter_1.pdf
February 2004
Commission
4.5 published its annual newsletter to be downloaded from
the web site of the IUSS (http://www.iuss.org/Newsletter11C4-5.pdf).
January
2004
E
Frossard took part as representative of IUSS in the 3rd
meeting of the research group of the soil thematic strategy
of the European Union in Barcelona.
During the last week of April 2004 members of
most commissions of division 4 met at the intercongress
meeting in Philadelphia to prepare the contributions of
division 4 for the next world congress of soil science.
August
2004
Winfried
Blum (Austria), Emmanuel Frossard (Switzerland), Benno
Warkentin (USA) and Ugo Wolf (Italy) organized a session at
the 32nd
International Geological Congress in Florence (Italy)
that was entitled "Function of soils for human
societies and the environment" on the 21st of august
2004. The session chaired by W Blum and E Frossard had 8
oral presentations and 10 posters. About 60 people visited
the oral session. All the papers were presented and briefly
discussed. The presentations gave a broad overview on soil
genesis, soil mapping and on the services soils perform for
the environment and the human societies including the
conservation of archaeological assets. A special emphasis
was made on the relationships between soil science and
geology. Finally the European framework for soil protection
was presented. At the end a general discussion was held on
the definition of soils, and on how soil science and geology
could develop more intense collaborations. The posters, all
of high quality, dealt with extremely different topics such
as mapping, biodiversity, soil pollution and soil
degradation... This session contributed to address one of
the objectives of the conference that was increasing
collaboration between earth disciplines. The overheads of
most oral contributions as well as some posters can be found
under www.pe.ipw.agrl.ethz.ch/research/Conf_pres
The
geological society has accepted to publish a book entitled
"Function of soils for human societies and the
environment" (Eds E Frossard, W Blum, B Warkentin and U
Wolf) that will contain most of the presentations made in
this session.
September
2004
Commissions
4.4 and 4.5 contributed to the organization of the symposium
"Soil Education and Public Awareness" at the 2004
EUROSOIL in Freiburg, Germany on the 12th of September. The
11 oral presentations of this symposium were well attended.
Outstanding posters were presented at this symposium. The
poster entitled “soil science meets school” authored by
Maria Dell Abate and Gilmo Vianello received the award of
the best poster of the meeting! A lot of interesting papers
on soil history and soil protection were also given in the
symposium “Soil and Society” of this meeting.
October
2004
The
late Michel Robert and Emmanuel Frossard participated during
the period covered by this report to the meetings of the
European Union Soil Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection.
Both of them were asked to contribute with an invited
lecture in the meeting “Towards a harmonized management of
European soil resources research agenda for soil
protection” that took place in Vienna on the 28th and 29th
of October. Stephen Nortcliff gave the presentation that
Michel Robert should have been given. This was a very moving
moment.
October 2004
Division
4 and Commission 4.5 officially supported the meeting
“History and Agronomy: Between Ruptures and Duration”
that took place in Montpellier from the 20th to the 22nd of
October 2004 at the école nationale supérieure agronomique
in Montpellier. The meeting is organized by CIRAD/INRA/IRD
and the University of Montpellier III.
November
2004
Chuck
Rice co-organized a symposium on "Field-to-Region Links
of Soil Carbon Dynamics, Greenhouse Gas Fluxes, and
Agricultural Mitigation Practices” to be held at the joint
meeting of the Soil Science Society of America and the
Canadian Society of Soil Science to be held in Seattle
Washington November 1-4 2004.
Approximately 40 posters were submitted and six oral
presentations scheduled with representatives from Argentina,
Brazil, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand/Australia, and the U.S.
November
2004
The
SSSA Council on History, Philosophy and Sociology of Soil
Science" and C4.5 cooperated on soil history sessions
for the ASA meetings in Seattle. One session, on the Lewis
and Clark Trail, had 7 papers. It was the 200th anniversary.
It was a surprise to some people that their journals
contained observations on soils. Another session on a range
of history papers had 19 contributions.
The meeting International
Conference on Element Balances as a Tool for Sustainable
Land Management: was held in Tirana, Albania, from the
13th to the 19th of March 2005. It was
organized jointly by the University of Agriculture of
Tirana, the Albanian Institute of Soil Science, the Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH), the Swiss
Federal Research Station for Agroecology and Agriculture
(FAL) and the Division 4 of the International Union of Soil
Sciences (IUSS). It was funded jointly by the Albanian
Ministry of Agriculture, the Albanian Ministry of
Environment, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in
Zurich, the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment,
Landscape and Forest, the Swiss Development Cooperation
Agency, and the Division 4 of the International Union of
Soil Sciences. The meeting gathered 90 participants from 18
countries: Albania (44), Austria (2), Belgium (1), Czech
Republic (4), France (5), Germany (2), Hungary (4), Iran
(1), Italy (2), Latvia (1), Lithuania (1), Netherlands (2),
Romania (2), Russia (3), Serbia and Montenegro (4), Slovakia
(1), Switzerland (8) and USA (3). During the meeting 30 oral
presentations were given by world wide recognized experts
and 32 posters were presented. Each oral and poster
presentation was followed by intense discussion and exchange
of ideas. The organization of 4 working groups allowed all
the participants to contribute to the discussion. Overheads
of the oral presentations, the working groups’ conclusions
and the final conclusions including recommendations to
policy makers and researchers are available on the web site
of the group of plant nutrition of the ETH Zurich, under www.pe.ipw.agrl.ethz.ch/research/Conf_pres
2.
Activities
scheduled until Philadelphia 2006
Commission
4.5 and Division 4 support a workshop on the history of soil
science entitled “Histoires d'hommes et de concepts en
Science du Sol” organized by JP Legros and C Feller of
the French association of soil science (AFES) that will take
place on the 31st of may 2005 at IRD, 213 rue La
Fayette, 75010 Paris. The papers presented at this meeting
will be published in the journal “Etude et Gestion des
Sols”. More information on this workshop can be obtained
from Christian Feller: Christian.Feller@mpl.ird.fr
Chuck
Rice from commission 4.2 is responsible for organizing a
symposium on “Greenhouse Gases and Carbon Sequestration in
Agriculture and Forestry.”
The Symposium involves a comprehensive examination of
the latest research on sources and sinks of the three
primary greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and
methane) related to cropland, forests, rangeland, and
wetlands. Scientists from around the world are invited to
submit papers for oral or poster presentations.
The symposium will be held March 21-24, 2005 in
Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
For further information see: http://soilcarboncenter.k-state.edu/conference.
Commission
4.4 and Division 4 support an international workshop
organized by TORBA soil and society entitled “Soil
Related Discords and Conflicts: Identification and
Understanding of Human Discords and Conflicts Related to
Soil Use; Their Prevention, Mitigation and Management”
that will take place in 2004. Until now only 9 papers have
been received by TORBA. The call for papers is extended
until a sufficient number is received so as to hold a
fruitful meeting.
More
information at: www.torba-soil-society.org
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