Celebrating Soil: Discovering Soils and Landscapes

ISBN-13: 9783319326825 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 243 str.

Megan R. Balks; Darlene Zabowski

Opis

This richly illustrated book celebrates the diversity, importance, and intrinsic beauty of soils around the world and helps the reader to understand the ways that soils are related to the landscapes in which they form. The book unravels the complex bond between humans and soils and the importance of soils in our cultures and everyday lives.
Soil is critical to terrestrial life on earth. It underpins human food supply and provides materials on which we build our lives. Soil is out of sight and often out of mind, thus easy to overlook. Yet soil has tremendous variety and intrinsic beauty for those who care to look. Soil contains a memory of the events that have shaped the landscape and the environment. With help you can look at a soil and understand the stories that it has to tell.
Written in a reader-friendly way, Celebrating Soil is a wonderful resource for farmers, horticulturalists, naturalists, students and others who are concerned about how soils are formed, work and are used.

Recenzje

"Two authors have that rare talent of excellence in instruction-enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is what makes reading this book fun. ... Using a global perspective gained from personal experience, the authors manage to show exactly why soil science regards each soil as unique in its time and place. For the novice, this is the best illustration of why and how soils can be a fascinating topic. ... Summing Up: Recommended. All readers." (M. S. Coyne, Choice, Vol. 54 (9), May, 2017)

Spis treści

Soils in harmony with the environment.- Soils born of fire.- Soils born of water.- Soils of forests.- Soils of grasslands and rangelands.- Soils in extreme environments.- When the earth moves: Earthquakes, landslides and erosion.- Soils and humans.- Managing and caring for our soils.- Appendices.

O autorze

Dr. Megan Balks has over 30 years of experience in soil-related study, research, and teaching. Megan

is based in New Zealand (at the University of Waikato), and her experience includes 19 trips to study

soils in Antarctica as well as work throughout New Zealand. Megan has also traveled widely to study

soils having undertaken fi eldtrips in many parts of the world, including the Arctic (Russia, Norway,

and Alaska), Australia, Thailand, Peru, China, Samoa, and Europe. Megan undertook her PhD studying

irrigation of effl uent onto land, and she has also worked on water irrigation schemes in Otago and

effl uent irrigation in Australia. She has supervised over 40 graduate thesis projects on the widest

range of soil-related studies from soil fertility in New Zealand hill country, through irrigation of city

wastewater onto land and study of some of the most southerly soils on the planet in Antarctica. Meganis a fellow of the New Zealand Society of Soil Science (the fi rst woman to receive that honor). With

her husband Errol, Megan owns a small hill country sheep farm, which also includes about 60 acres

of New Zealand native forest, and so she has hands-on experience in managing the land.

Professor Darlene Zabowski has a BS in forest ecology and an MS and PhD in soil science. She

worked as a research soil scientist for the US Forest Service before transferring to the University of

Washington in 1993. She has conducted research on soils and taught introductory soils and advanced

classes in soil science for 30 years. She has received several awards for excellence in teaching. Darlene

has worked with many soils in various areas of the USA, as well as Canada, New Zealand, and China,

and participated in fi eld trips in many other parts of the world. Her research has mostly focused on

forest soils but has often included comparative research with soils from other ecosystems and a varietyof landscapes. Darlene is an avid hiker and enjoys keeping the soil in her vegetable garden healthy.