Understanding Soils in Urban Environments

Understanding Soils in Urban Environments is a concise book explaining how urban soils develop, change and erode. Soils provide the foundation for buildings and infrastructure, and the medium for plant growth in fields, parks and gardens. They can act as a sink for waste, and can be contaminated in urban areas by heavy metals, organic chemicals and other contaminants. Soil properties such as water retention, salinity and acidity can cause environmental and structural problems for buildings and other engineering works. This text recognises and draws attention to the particular nature of soils in urban environments and discusses their distinctive management needs. Since the first edition was published in 2011, it has been used across a wide range of disciplines, many of which require an understanding of urban soil and specific soil properties that cause environmental concern. Urban soils are now recognised as much more important now than they were ten years ago, when they were seen as a poor relation to agriculture. The need for better understanding of all aspects of this topic has become evident especially at conferences in the last 5 years in Australia and internationally, where urban soils are now included as specific sections, not just as subsets such as contamination. This new edition updates and expands on the original text, including a specific chapter on the use of manufactured soil for rehabilitation and recreation, and additional case studies in other chapters, particularly contamination. The text is updated throughout to address the increasing importance of soil health for seed banks and parklands, and its implications for planning developments, the legal determination of bioregions, and addressing environmental issues that can arise from mismanagement of urban soils.

Dr Pam Hazelton has been a practicing soil scientist for over 35 years. She graduated in Science from the University of Sydney and gained her PhD for her work on semi-arid soils from the University of NSW. She was a consultant to the Soil Conservation Service, a soil surveyor in the Department of Conservation and Land Management and has worked with environmental consultants. She been a lecturer at a variety of universities and in the Faculty of Engineering and IT at the University of Technology Sydney specifically focused on the environmental and engineering problems of urban soils. She is a former President of Soil Science Australia and also Vice President of the International Union of Soil Scientists Commission for Education in Soil Science.

Dr Brian Murphy has worked as a soil scientist for 30 years with a strong focus on applied science. He graduated in Agricultural Science from the University of Sydney, from where he also gained his Masters and his PhD for his work on soil structure in cropping systems. Dr Murphy's interests lie in the application of soil science to environmental management, hydrology, salinity and urban land use. His work involves providing day-to-day advice on the management of soils for a range of natural resource issues. He is also an experienced researcher and has published numerous scientific papers, and is an editor of a very successful, widely used textbook, now in its third edition, on the characterisation and management of soils. He is a former President of the NSW Branch of Soil Science Australia.