This year (2015) we celebrate the International Year of Soil (IYS). The recognition of the importance of the soil by the UN shows that there is a growing acknowledgement for the important role of soils in combating and mitigating the challenges of our time, like food security, water resources, climate change, and how ecosystem services can be ensured for future generations.
At the EGU we are organising an array of events in honour of the International Year of Soil of which this Union wide session is one of the highlights. In this session we want to show that soil science is an inter interdisciplinary science. It lies in between disciplines like hydrology, meteorology, lithology and biology. We invited six leading scientist to show how soil science is connected to one or more of these disciplines and also how combining these disciplines can help to solve societal problems. In addition in this session there will be attention for the issue of how our scientific knowledge can be transferred into usable policy measures.
We have confirmed talks by:
Rattan Lal: connection to biology and agronomy on global scale food security
Potential title: “Role of soil organic matter in soils for food security: how to ensure healthy soils for healthy food”.
Pablo Tittonel: connection to lithology/geology and biology/agronomy in developing countries
Potential title: “Soil in developing countries, soil fertility and the role of soils for food security”.
Mike Kirkby: connection to hydrology
Potential title: “Connecting soils and water on multiple scales: from pore to catchment.”
Yakov Pachepsky: connection to biology/agronomy and geololgy/lithology with focus on pollution
Potential title: “Role of soils for food security: how to ensure healthy soils for healthy food: pathogens in soils.”
Johan Bouma: connecting soils science to the policy arena:
Potential title: ”Timely injection of knowledge when interacting with stakeholders and policy makers”
Richard Bardgett: connection to atmosphere/climate change and biodiversity.
Potential title: “Role of soils for Climate change and ecology.”