in memoriam - Pieter Buringh (1918 - 2009)

After a long and active life Dr ir Piet Buringh passed away on 27th April 2009 at the age of 91 years. His career centred around the study of soils in the field, their geography, morphology and classification, as well as their agricultural use potential. He studied at Wageningen Agricultural University , where Prof. C.H.Edelman was one of his teachers. Buringh’s career included a chair at the same university. He was an efficient manager, a devoted scientist and a gifted teacher.

Buringh’s career started in 1947 at the Netherlands Soil Survey Institute (StiBoKa) where he was appointed as secretary and worked closely with the director, Prof. Edeleman. His doctoral thesis[i] was written during this period in which he was actively engaged in soil surveys in the Netherlands . In 1955, he was appointed by the Government of Iraq as a consultant for soil survey and land evaluation. He participated in various soil survey projects in Iraq , the main emphasis being on the study of saline and alkali soils, their origin, distribution and use potential. The results of three years work in Iraq were published [ii] in a book on Iraqi soils, with an exploratory soil map.

After his return to the Netherlands in 1958 Dr Buringh was appointed Head of the Soils Department of the International Training Centre for Aerial Survey at Delft (now at Enschede). He was a keen promoter of the interpretation of aerial photographs as a tool in soil surveys. In 1960, Buringh joined the Board of Directors of a Dutch consulting firm, ‘De Nederlandse Heidemaatschappij’. He worked in several projects, both in the Netherlands and overseas. From 1956 to 1974 he was Deputy Secretary General of the International Society of Soil Science (ISSS, now IUSS).

In 1964, Dr Buringh was offered a chair in tropical soil science at Wageningen Agricultural University . Next to teaching he initiated the Training Project in Pedology which was meant to give students with a major in soil science an opportunity to get practical experience. The Training Project was to be based in a tropical or subtropical country, in cooperation with local university and government departments. The project has two main aims: offering a study area to students from Wageningen and the host country, and making the results of the investigations available to host country authorities. The first training project was based in the Konya Basin of Central Turkey. Some 25 Dutch students and a number of Turkish students participated in the project together with several members of the teaching staff of Wageningen University . Three staff members received a PhD on work in Konya . To the students in this project Prof. Buringh was an inspiring and highly appreciated mentor.