This book provides information on key questions of soil science to meet the global challenges of the 21st century. We address the role of soils and key research topics from a landscape perspective. State-of–the art information on research and novel measurement and management technologies is presented in a simple question and answer style. The role of soils for feeding humanity, maintaining biodiversity and protecting the climate is highlighted. Facts are linked with novel international studies.
Photographs and graphics illustrate soil functions, analyses and management options in specific landscapes. Numerous case studies in soil science, not yet published in English, are presented. They focus on landscapes in Northern Eurasia.
Authors point on some critical issues of the current approaches to soil management. Knowledge and communication about soils can help to optimise the different stakeholder demands on soil use, enabling the survival of humanity in the 21st century.
Basic knowledge of soil texture and structure, soil-forming factors, water balance, chemistry, biology, field diagnostic and sustainable management, which is important for everyone who makes professionally decisions about soils, must be improved. Soil science research should increasingly be conducted in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects and landscape observatories. Landscape planning and soil policies as instruments for guiding soil management should increasingly be based on scientific principles.
The book is addressed to a wide range of stakeholders and students, including generalists and specialists in soil and landscape science research and teaching, scientists from neighbouring disciplines, employees of public authorities, farmers, horticulturalists and foresters as well as landscape planners and engineers.
Lothar Mueller (Müller), Prof. Dr., is a retired scientist from the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in Muencheberg, Germany. He studied agriculture at the Humboldt University in Berlin and graduated from the Academy of Agricultural Science of the GDR (Dr. agr.) in 1974. He has worked at the Research Centre of Soil Fertility (1974–1991), and the ZALF Institutes of Soil Landscape Research and Landscape Hydrology (1991-2014) in Muencheberg. Lothar Mueller has strongest background in soil science, soil hydrology, and soil fertility in particular, as well as in agriculture. He developed and tested the Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating along with several international co-operators and has published more than 350 scientific papers, including more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. Lothar Mueller is initiator and scientific editor of the book series “Innovations in Landscape Research” at Springer Nature.
Rainer Georg Jörgensen (Joergensen), Prof. Dr., is a retired Professor of Soil Biology and Plant Nutrition at the University of Kassel, Germany. He studied agriculture at the Georg-August-University Göttingen and graduated there at the Institute of Soil Science 1986 (Dr. sc. agr.). From 1987-1988, Rainer Georg Jörgensen worked in the Soil Microbiology Research Group of the Rothamsted Experimental Station (UK). From 1989-1999, he worked as a senior scientist at the University of Göttingen and completed his habilitation in 1995. From 1999-2023, he was appointed as full professor at the University of Kassel. Rainer Georg Jörgensen has extensive experience with soils from forest, grassland, and arable land-use systems in humid temperate, semi-arid, arid, and tropical climates. His research has a strong focus on measuring microbial activity, biomass (C, N, S, P, ionome), and necromass (amino sugars, EPS), as well as rhizodeposition, using stable isotopes (13C, 15N). He published more than 400 scientific publications on these topics. He was Chief-Editor of Soil Biology and Biochemistry from 2009 to 2020 and is still in the editorial board of several soil journals.
Frank Eulenstein, Prof. Dr., is a scientist at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in Muencheberg, Germany. He studied agriculture at the Georg-August-University Göttingen and graduated there at the Institute of Soil Science in 1992 (Dr. sc. agr.). Since 1993 he has worked as scientist at the ZALF Institute of Land Use Systems. His fields of interest are water, matter and energy fluxes in agricultural systems and the practical questions of cropping and fertilisation. Currently, he works in the Research Area “Land Use and Governance”, workgroup “Sustainable Grassland Systems” of ZALF. Frank Eulenstein has headed several project groups in soil fertility management and bioeconomy. He has trained several PhD students and published more than 250 scientific papers. Frank Eulenstein has also practical experience as a manager for the development and distribution of organic fertilisers.
