Understanding Soil Change
Soil Sustainability over Millennia, Centuries, and Decades
Published on 16. August 2007
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-0-521-03943-7 (ISBN)
Description
Across the world, soils are managed with an intensity and at a geographic scale never before attempted, yet we know remarkably little about how and why managed soils change through time. Understanding Soil Change explores a legacy of soil change in south-eastern North America, a region of global ecologic, agricultural and forestry significance: from the acidic soils of primary hardwood forests that covered the region until about 1800, through the marked transformations affected by long-cultivated cotton, to contemporary soils of rapidly growing and intensively managed pine forests. These well-documented records significantly enrich the science of ecology and pedology, and provide valuable lessons for land management throughout the world. The book calls for the establishment of a global network of soil-ecosystem studies, like the invaluable Calhoun study on which the book is based, to provide further information on sustainable land management, vital as human demands on soil continue to increase.
Reviews / Votes
'Many ecologists will find this book useful for both their teaching and their research efforts.' Tim Seastedt, Trends in Ecology and Evolution 'This marvelous little book tells the story of southeastern US ecosystems from the perspective of soil changes over time scales of decades, centuries and millennia ... This book fills an important niche in the biogeochemical literature ... This study shows the importance of an integrated appraisal of soil dynamics in ecosystem function, and demonstrates the increasing maturity of soil science.' David Schimel, Nature '... Richter and Markewitz provide a grand tour for scientists and students of other disciplines.' Wayne M. Getz, The Quarterly Review of Biology '... a worthy addition to any private or library collection.' Restoration EcologyMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
33 Tables, unspecified; 10 Halftones, unspecified; 63 Line drawings, unspecified
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
418 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-03943-7 (9780521039437)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Content
Preface; Acknowledgements; Foreword William A. Reiners and Pedro A. Sanchez; Part I. Soil and Sustainability: 1. Concerns about soil in the modern world; 2. Managing soils for productivity and environmental quality; 3. Biogeochemical sciences in support of soil management; 4. The science of estimating soil change; 5. Soil change over millennia, centuries and decades; 6. The Calhoun forest: a window to understanding soil change; Part II. Soil Change over Time Scales of Millennia: Long-Term Pedogenesis; 7. Soil development from the Devonian to Mendocino and Hawaii; 8. Genesis of advanced weathering-stage soils at the Calhoun ecosystem; 9. The Calhoun soil profile; 10. The forest's biogeochemical attack on soil minerals; Part III. Soil Change over Time Scales of Centuries: Conversion of Primary Forests to Agricultural Fields: 11. Agricultural beginnings: Native American cultivation; 12. Soil biogeochemistry in cotton fields of the Old South; 13. Agricultural legacies in old-field soils; Part IV. Soil Change over Time Scales of Decades: Conversion of Agricultural Fields to Secondary Forests: 14. The birth of a new forest; 15. Accumulation and rapid turnover of soil carbon in a re-establishing forest; 16. Satisfying a forest's four-decade nitrogen demand; 17. Soil re-acidification and circulation of nutrient cations; 18. Changes in soil-phosphorus fractions in a re-establishing forest; Part V. Soil Change and the Future: 19. The case for long-term soil-ecosystem experiments; Epilogue; Recommended readings; Appendix I. Carbonic acid weathering reactions; Appendix II. Simulation of bomb-produced 14C in the forest floor at the Calhoun Experimental Forest, SC; Appendix III. Sources of variation in the Calhoun Experimental Forest's main analysis of variance (ANOVA); Appendix IV. Total elemental concentrations for soils from the Calhoun Experimental Forest, SC; References; Index.