Modelling Soil Development Under Global Change (SpringerBriefs in Earth System Sciences)

Quantitative assessments of the effects of global change on soil development are mostly focused on soil carbon, some nutrients, pollutants and soil water. Soil however is a complex entity with interacting biological, physical and chemical processes that are rarely modelled in its entirety. Additionally, for the sake of simplicity various soil properties are considered constants whereas in reality they are not. Soil as we observe it is the resultant of many processes driven by varying boundary conditions such as climate and organisms including men. This is not different when we study global change, thus modelling soil development under global change overlaps with modelling soil formation. This book gives an overview of what such model should entail, with ample descriptions to use SoilGen, a simulattion model to study pedogenesis.