This book represents the first comprehensive edition, in English, on the soils of Brazil, in the challenge of illustrating all the biomes of a country of truly continental dimension. In addition to presenting the first geosystemic view of Brazilian soils, in all geological, geomorphological and environmental aspects, the book also makes a key contribution to the discussion of current topics in Pedology, such as Anthrosols, Technosols, Soil Management trends and sustainability, Pedometrics and advanced techniques of digital soil mapping. The soils of Brazil were conveniently stratified into sectors and treated within the different biomes, without neglecting any area of the Brazilian territory.
Considering the aspects of the landscape of occurrence, climates, geomorphology and geology, each pedological region was abundantly documented with soil profile data and many fine original, three-dimensional illustrations and diagrams, made with care by the authors. Among the regions, the most important are the forested Amazon, the Central Plateau with Cerrados, the Caatingas of the northeastern semi-arid region, the Atlantic Forest in all known variants; in addition, the Restingas, Mangroves, Oceanic Islands, Wetlands of the Pantanal and the subtropical regions of the Pampa and Matas de Araucaria. The book is of great importance as the first published work on Brazilian soils, but it is of great interest to geologists and geomorphologists who study the tropics and subtropics, due to the novelty and scope of the work.
Chapter 1. A Brief History of Brazilian Soil Science (Carlos E. Schaefer).- Chapter 2. The Making of Brazilian Soilscapes: A Geosystemic Vista on Neotropical Pedology (Carlos E. Schaefer).- Chapter 3. The Soil Regions: A Framework for Stratifying the Brazilian Soilscapes (Carlos E. Schaefer).- Chapter 4. Soils from Brazilian Amazonia (Carlos E. Schaefer).- Chapter 5. Soils of Cerrados, the Brazilian Savannas (Virlei Álvaro de Oliveira).- Chapter 6. Semiarid Soils of the Caatinga Biome of Northeastern Brazil (José Coelho de Araújo Filho).- Chapter 7. Soils From the Atlantic Forest (Ademir Fontana).- Chapter 8. Soils of the Coastal Tablelands Under Atlantic Forest (Marcelo Metri Corrêa).- Chapter 9. Soils of Pantanal: The Largest Continental Wetland (Eduardo G. Couto). Chapter 10. Soils of the Southern Araucarias High Lands (Ricardo Simão Diniz Dalmolin).- Chapter 11. Soils of Pampa Gaúcho, the Mixed Prairies of Southern Brazil (Jaime Antonio de Almeida).- Chapter 12. Soils of Campos Chapter Rupestres (Rupestrian Grasslands) of the Old Brazilian Mountain Ranges (Carlos E. Schaefer).- Chapter 13. Soils of the Brazilian Volcanic Islands (Carlos E. Schaefer).- Chapter 14. Soils of Restingas (Pablo Vidal-Torrado).- Chapter 15. Mangroves Along Brazilian Coast (Tiago Osório Ferreira).- Chapter 16. The Future of Brazilian Pedology: Pedometricsand Advanced Methods for Soil Survey (Elpídio Inácio Fernandes Filho).- Chapter 17. Technosols and Anthrosols in Brazil: A Brief Account (Carlos E. Schaefer).- Chapter 18. Insights into Brazilian Soils and Sustainable Agriculture Scenarios (Vinicius de Melo Benites).
Carlos Schaefer is a leading expert on Antarctic soils and has extensive field experience, having coordinated several Antarctic campaigns during the last decade.