IUSS Alert 55 (November 2009)
Information for and from the global soil science community
19th WCSS - Papers can still be submitted!
The 19th World Congress of Soil Science will be held in Australia, 1-6 August 2010 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. The submission dates are now as follows: Oral Papers - The final close date for papers to be considered for oral presentation at the Congress is now 30 November 2009. Poster Papers - Papers to be considered for poster presentation will now be accepted until 31st January 2010. Early registration is now also open. A comprehensive list of tours can now be seen on the website. These include Pre- and Post-Congress Tours, in addition to an interesting selection of shorter Congress Excursions available just before or after the week of the Congress. See www.19wcss.org.au
Conferences and meetings
International Workshop on Quantitative Soil Spectroscopy, GFZ Potsdam, Germany, 15-16 April 2010. This workshop is organized by Eyal Ben Dor and Sabin Chabrillat, as part of "Hyperspectral Applications for Soil" working group within the EUFAR framework project and the ISPRS technical commission VII/3 "Information extraction from Hyperspectral Data". The workshop will cover spectral analysis of soil as was developed over the past decade by worldwide experts. The workshop intend to discuss past, present and future activities in quantitative analysis of soil spectra as well as applications already implemented for hyperspectral remote sensing information as acquired from air and space domains. The workshop will include frontal lectures of experts, an analytical course, demonstration of new software and instrumentation dedicated to analyze soil spectra and a round table. The workshop is not opened to the public (place is limited) and interested partners are requested to contact the organizers prior submission an abstract. The deadline for the abstract is January 22, 2010. For more information, please see the home page of the EUFAR website on www.eufar.net under "What's new"
International Conference on Soil Classification and Reclamation of Degraded Lands in Arid Environments and Launching of Abu Dhabi Soil Survey Report, Abu Dhabi, UAE, 17-19 May, 2010. The soils display extensive spatial and temporal variability in their properties, and therefore, their understanding, soil classification, land use management and reclamation are of prime importance. Soil information provides foundation for potential uses and problems that may arise and therefore is the key for policy and decision making, especially in arid regions facing severe water scarcity. The co-occurrence of the International conference and launching of the Abu Dhabi Soil Survey Report will provide excellent opportunities to the international scientific community to share the world soils information leading to proper land use management, and reclamation of degraded land in arid environments. Participants with accepted papers will be fully or partially funded depending on innovative research and quality of papers. The deadline for Abstracts submission is 30th November 2009. For submission and more information, see www.ead.ae/en/events/conference.on.soil.clasification.aspx
New Publications
Manual of Methods for Soil and Land Evaluation. Editor Edoardo A. C. Costantini. Science Publishers, Enfield, 2009. 600 pp. ISBN 978-1-57808-571-2. The goal of the manual is to supply an operational tool for pedologists, agronomists, environmentalists, and all of the other specialists who carry out land evaluation for agriculture and forestry or, more generally, stakeholders and policy makers who make decisions at the local level based on the knowledge of the nature of soil. Discussion of the topics is not only technical and operational, but also in-depth and didactic; therefore, the text may also be used as a valid complement for students majoring in subjects that involve soil use, management and conservation. The literature offers a wide choice of possible soil and land evaluation methods, while knowledge of the relationships existing between the physical characteristics of lands, particularly those of soils, and the requirements of specific uses is limited.
Chemical Elements in Plants and Soil: Parameters Controlling Essentiality. By Franzle, Stefan 2009, Approx. 180 p., Hardcover ISBN: 978-90-481-2751-1. Earlier works on plant essential elements have revealed a series of complicated, counter-intuitive relationships among various chemical elements in different plant species, due to both unlike usage of certain elements in plants and to different carriers effecting resorption and transport. In an attempt to provide a more coherent theory behind plant mineral nutrition, this groundbreaking book adopts a very different approach from the existing literature, presenting an explanation of the essentiality of chemical elements in biological systems and the application of stoichiometric network analysis (SNA) to the biological system of elements. Starting with data from biochemical environmental analysis, and a discussion of the phenomena involved in metal ion partition and autocatalytic behaviour, conditions and criteria controlling the partition of metals into biomass are investigated. Several rules are derived and investigated in terms of their interaction both in comparisons among contemporary organisms and in terms of evolution. This allows the construction, for example of a map which directly traces the biological feature of essentiality to parameters of coordination chemistry.
Plant Nutrition of Greenhouse Crops. By Sonneveld, Cees, Voogt, Wim. 2009, XV, 431 p., Hardcover ISBN: 978-90-481-2531-9. Greenhouse cultivation is noted for its high uptake of minerals, consistent climatic conditions, exclusion of natural precipitation and control of salt accumulation. Acknowledging that plant nutrition in greenhouse cultivation differs in many essentials from field production, this volume details specific information about testing methods for soils and substrates in a greenhouse environment. It does so while offering a universally applicable analysis. This is based on the composition of the soil and substrate solutions, methods for the interpretation of tissue tests, and crop responses on salinity and water supply in relation to fertilizer application. Fertilizer additions, related to analytical data of soil and substrate samples, are presented for a wide range of vegetable and ornamental crops. The subject is especially apt now as substrate growing offers excellent possibilities for the optimal use of water and nutrients, as well as the potential for sustainable production methods for greenhouse crops.
Fire Effects on Soils and Restoration Strategies. Edited by: Artemi Cerde and Peter R. Robichaud. 2009 Science Publishers, USA. ISBN 978-1-57808-526-2. This book has been published a decade after Fire's Effects on Ecosystems by DeBano, Neary, and Folliott (1998), and builds on their foundation to update knowledge on natural post-fire processes and describe the use and effectiveness of various restoration strategies that may be applied when human intervention is warranted. The chapters in this book, written by leading scientists, have been compiled to provide relevant and accessible information to students, land managers, and policy-makers as well as other scientists.
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