A world soils agenda: Discussing international actions for the sustainable use of soils

Promoting sustainable forms of natural resource management is a challenge land users are unable to tackle solely on their own initiative. Soil and land degradation remains an unresolved problem of global environmental change. There is a need for concerted international action that directly addresses this issue at the global level. A discussion of action to promote the sustainable use of soils and land took place in a working group established by the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) in 1998. The present publication reports on the results of this discussion and proposes that the international community establish a ‘world soils agenda’ that will enable the scientific community, international institutions and their national partners to work together towards the common goal of safeguarding soils and land as resources central to our own survival as well as the Earth’s biological wealth.

Tab. 1: Major cation content McMurdo Dry Valley soils

Matric effects contribute less to the water potential of soils in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica (informally known as the Ross Desert) than do the mineral salts of these soils. Since soil samples from the same area can exhibit 10-fold differences in mineral content, it is important that water potentials be determined on the same samples used for microbiological unvestigations. The psychrophilic yeast content of fertile soil samples from the arid highlands of the McMurdo Dry valleys indicated that the effective water content of these soils did not exceed ca. 4.5% (v/w).

Fertilizer and pesticide movement from citrus groves in Florida flatwood soils /

Mode of access: Internet.

Determination of kinetics of phosphorus mineralization in soils under oxidizing conditions /

Mode of access: Internet.

Simulation of nutrient loss from soils due to rainfall acidity /

Bibliography: p. 43-44.

An evaluation of expedient methodology for identification of potentially expansive soils /

Prepared by Soils and Pavements Laboratory, U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, Vicksburg, Miss., under contract no. PO 4-1-0195.

Saline County soils /

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Highest return farming systems for Tama and Muscatine soils: an application of linear programming to 240- and 480- acre farms operated by two men/

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Highest return farming systems for Drummer-Flanagan soils : an application of linear programming to farm planning /

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Vegetables and their cultivation; the history, cultivation, and forcing of culinary vegetables, saladings, and herbs, for home use and exhibitions; also the formation of the vegetable garden; the management of soils; manures and their uses; and the eradication of injurious insect and fungoid pests, etc. ...

Mode of access: Internet.

Analyses of United States soils.

I. North Atlantic States, by J. G. Lipman, J. S. Joffe and Adrienne B. Conybeare.--2. South Atlantic States, by J. S. Joffe and A. B. Conybeare.

Synthetic detergents in soils and ground waters /

"January, 1961."

The effect of chemical compositions of alkylbenzene sulfonates on adsorption by soils /

Includes bibliographical references (p. 142-146).

Release and movement of radionuclides in soils contaminated with fallout materials from an underground thermonuclear detonation /

Project Sedan.

Advance sheets--field operations of the Bureau of Soils.

Issued in cooperation with various state geological agencies.