IUSS Alert - 19 (November 2006)
Information for and from the global soil science community
The World Association of Soil and Water Conservation
The World Association of Soil and Water Conservation (WASWC), a global forum for scientists and conservationists in soil and water, is now offering online products and services to academics and professionals all over the world. They include Newsletter, Journal, Proceedings, Special Publications, Photo websites, a.o. Members will have a chance to be among thousands of specialists in various fields. We would like to invite all IUSS Alert readers to be our Guest members by accessing the website http://waswc.ait.ac.th using username waswc and password 291785 (valid until until 30 April 2007). After that you are welcome to sign up as paid members, the annual fee is US$5-10.
Election IUSS Officers
The last round of elections in 2005/6 for Division and Commission Officers was the first time the IUSS endeavoured to broaden the franchise by seeking to involve the full membership. Whilst this was considered an improvement on the previous approach to elections which were held at the World Congress, there were still a number of teething problems with the procedures. The Secretary General is currently working on the procedures and the proposed calendar of events is as follows:
Spring 2007
Nominations (including short statements) received by Secretary General whom will forward nominations to Divisional Nominating Committees. The Divisional Nominating Committee will forward to IUSS Electoral Committee lists of candidates to be included on ballot plus lists of candidates not included. The Secretary General will forward to all National Members the final ballot paper as approved by the IUSS Electoral Committee
Autumn 2007
Elections organized by National Members and the National Members return number of votes cast for each candidate to the Secretary General.
Early 2008
The Secretary General on behalf of IUSS Electoral Committee announces result of Election on IUSS website and sends results to national Members.
Further information in the next IUSS alerts or contact the Secretary General at
Soils on YouTube and Google and Podcasts
Do you need soil video in the classroom? There are few useful ones on the web that can be downloaded for free - some cost money. Check: http://video.google.com and http://www.youtube.com (Google just bought YouTube so all video will be together one day). Click here for a video on the threats to Europe's soils.
Some time ago I asked for podcasts on soils (pedocasts if you wish) and it seems that there are not many around yet. The Soil Association (UK) has a few podcasts on soils, click: http://www.soilassociation.org/podcasts Some universities offer their lectures as podcasts and even as video podcast (sometimes shortened to vidcast or vodcast). If you are doing this and would like to share your pod- and vodcasts with the global soil science community send and e-mail to
Eijkelkamp's e+- SOIL MCT sensor and logger
Eijkelkamp has developed various sensors within its e+ sensor product range. The measured data is stored internally and can be transferred to the user via the e-SENSE telemetric system or linked directly to a laptop or PC via the read out unit.
The e+ SOIL MCT measures soil moisture content, conductivity and temperature. The measurement principle of the sensor is based on the 'Frequency Domain Method (FD)', measured with a frequency of 20 MHz, allowing the system to measure Dielectrical constant, Conductivity and temperature. For more information click here
IUSS Alerts are e-mailed to more than 12,000 people in over 100 countries. If you have information to share please send it to
Please forward the IUSS Alerts to your friends and colleagues.