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This study presents a methodology to assess uncertainties resulting from the use of pedotransfer functions (PTFs) when soil water budget is modelled at a hillslope scale. Two sources of uncertainty are examined: (i) errors in the assessment of the soil physical and chemical properties at unsampled locations, as related to the spatial spacing of the sample measurements across the entire study area,...
Investigations in Alpine soils indicate that mineral weathering is much faster in ‘young’ soils (<1000yr) than in ‘old’ soils (∼10,000yr). However, little is known about the initial stages of weathering and soil formation, i.e. during the first decades of soil genesis. In this study we investigated rock-forming minerals weathering at very early stages of soil formation. Due to the continuous retreat...
This paper discusses the study of taxonomic distance and pedodiversity by (1) deriving taxonomic distances for the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB), (2) calculating pedodiversity indices at the global scale using the soil map of the world at a scale 1:25M, and (3) comparing traditional diversity measures which are based on abundance of soil individuals to measures that are based on taxonomic...
Self-citation is common practice in most sciences but it differs between disciplines, countries and journals. Here we report on self-citation in soil science. We investigated citations in the major soil science journals and conducted an analysis on a country basis and for the subdiscipline of Pedometrics. It was found that the median rate of individual self-citation was 12%, and ranged from 5 to 60%...
Six soil/waste samples were incubated at 28°C under standard conditions to assess the impact of organic waste applications on heavy metal (HM) exchangeable fractions. The three studied soils are representative of the pedological diversity that prevails in Réunion and characterized by high natural total Cr, Cu, Ni and Zn concentrations. For organic waste, we tested two products that differed in their...
To understand the effects of nitrogen fertilization on soil respiration in an intensively cultivated fluvo-aquic loamy soil, a field experiment was conducted in the Fengqiu State Key Agro-Ecological Experimental Station, Henan province, China. The experiment consisted of five treatments: unplanted and N-unfertilized soil (CK0), unplanted soil treated with 150kg Nha −1 (CKNL), maize (Zea mays...
Terrain attributes are the most widely used predictors in digital soil mapping. Nevertheless, discussion of techniques for addressing scale issues and feature selection has been limited. Therefore, we provide a framework for incorporating multi-scale concepts into digital soil mapping and for evaluating these scale effects. Furthermore, soil formation and soil-forming factors vary and respond at different...
In calcareous parent material, pedogenic carbonate formation mostly involves dissolution and recrystallization of lithogenic carbonates with CO 2 of soil air, leading to a complete exchange of lithogenic carbon with soil-derived carbon. Interest in pedogenic carbonates has increased in recent decades because they are a useful tool for reconstructing paleoclimatic conditions (δ 13 C...
Goethite (Gt) is an important iron mineral in soils and sediments. Conventional measurements cannot effectively identify it at the low concentrations typical of soils and sediments. In this paper we demonstrate that diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) in conjunction with thermal treatment provides a definitive technique for identifying Gt in soil and sediments. The DRS pattern of Gt exhibits diagnostic...
Issues of food security, environmental degradation and global climate change underscore the need for the improved understanding of sustainable agricultural systems around the globe. The Quesungual slash-and-mulch agroforestry system (QSMAS) of western Honduras offers a promising alternative to traditional slash-and-burn (SB) agriculture for the mountainous tropical dry forest zones of Central America,...
Sediment fingerprinting techniques provide a means of assembling valuable reliable information on the principal sources of sediment problems at catchment scale. However, there is a need to refine existing approaches to take account of a variety of sources of uncertainty and to incorporate prior information. To address this need, a modified mass balance model incorporating a Monte Carlo approach for...
Soil is the largest reservoir of carbon (C) in the terrestrial biosphere and a slight variation in this pool could lead to substantial changes in the atmospheric CO 2 concentration, thus impact significantly on the global climate. Cultivation of natural ecosystems has led to marked decline in soil C storage, such that conservation agricultural practices (CAPs) are widely recommended as options...
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