Every spring, the University of Massachusetts - Amherst welcomes all ''Soils Conference" Scientific Advisory Board members with open arms as we begin the planning process responsible for bringing you quality conferences year after year. With this "homecoming" of sorts comes the promise of reaching across the table and interacting with a wide spectrum of stakeholders, each of them bringing their unique perspective in support of a successful Conference in the fall. This year marks the 20 DEGREES DEGREES anniversary of what started as a couple of thoughtful scientists interested in developing partnerships that together could fuel the environmental cleanup dialogue. Since the passage of the Superfund Law, regulators, academia and industry have come to realize that models that depend exclusively on ''command and control" mandates as the operative underpinning limit our collective ability to bring hazardous waste sites to productive re-use. It is with this concern in mind that the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection privatized its cleanup program in 1993, spurring the close-out of over 20,000 sites and spills across the Commonwealth to date, in a manner that is both protective of human health and the environment while also flexible and responsive to varied site uses and redevelopment goals. So we gather together again, this year, to hear our collective stories and share success and challenges just as we share stories at a family gathering. Take a read through the stories contained in these proceedings.

This text details the plant-assisted remediation method, "phytoremediation," which involves the interaction of plant roots and associated rhizospheric microorganisms for the remediation of soil contaminated with high levels of metals, pesticides, solvents, radionuclides, explosives, crude oil, organic compounds and various other contaminants. Each chapter highlights and compares the beneficial and economical alternatives of phytoremediation to currently practiced soil removal and burial practices.

This symposium on 'Boron in Soils and Plants' completes a quartet of reviews of the behaviour in soils and plants of four trace elements, copper, manganese, zinc and boron, selected for their importance in agriculture. The series had its genesis in a suggestion from Professor Robin Graham of the Waite Agricultural Research Institute that it would be appropriate in 1981 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the publication in 1931 of the first definitive evidence for the essentiality of copper in plants. The previous decade had seen a resurgence of interest in copper deficiency and toxicity in agriculture and an expansion of our understanding of the behaviour of copper in soils and plants. We therefore decided to promote a review of our understanding of the behaviour of copper in soils and plants by inviting appropriate authors to prepare reviews of 14 topics for publication in a book and presentation at a Golden Jubilee International Symposium on 'Copper in Soils and Plants'. Posters of current research were also displayed and published. Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia was chosen as the venue because of its then current research on copper, the importance of copper in Western Australian agriculture, and the presence in Perth of many international nutritionists due to the fortuitous scheduling in 1981 of the 'Fourth International Symposium on Trace Element Metabolism in Man and Animals'.

Observational and numerical modelling studies of the hydrodynamics, sediment transport, and light extinction were undertaken in the marine environment around Cape Bolinao in the Lingayen Gulf (NW Philippines). This text reports on the results of these studies, and offers conclusions.

This unique book presents for the first time the current status of the Danube River Delta, the challenges facing it, and proposed strategies to solve it. One of the biggest challenges is the human effects on the Danube Delta Environment and its lakes that work as sinks for natural and anthropogenic environmental changes, the water management and water flow variability and under climatic conditions including the extreme temperature and precipitation events based on RCMs output and the impact of sedimentation processes on the evolution of the Danube Delta. The book also contains the impact of wind and solar energy on the Delta. The book also presents the integrated approach for sustainable development of the Delta including the structural dynamics of the local economy, the role of tourism activities, integrated waste management in the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, demographic dynamics in the Delta, and the population health state. Also, a unique chapter on the opportunities of content exploitation as Language Learning Experiences is applied to Danube Delta. The book will be of great scientific interest to help the graduate students, researchers, stakeholder professional engineers, policy planners, policymakers of three countries to implement their sustainable development plan.

From the research results and discussions presented in this book it becomes clear that a profound understanding of the various interrelationships of the nutritional aspects allows the implementation of specific management strategies to improve stability and productivity of forest ecosystems. In particular the effects of environmental changes as related to the impacts of air pollution, global change and land use on nutrient uptake and cycling processes in forest ecosystems are dealt with in detail. The book is divided into six main issues and each topic contains reviews as well as selected results of recent studies.

Phytohormone research is a crucially important area of plant sciences. Phytohormones are one of the key systems integrating metabolic and developmental events in the whole plant and the response of plants to external factors. Thus, they influence the yield and quality of crops. During the last decade we have slowly begun to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying phytohormone action, largely as a result of the rapid developments that have been made internationally in the field of plant molecular genetics. Putative receptor proteins for ethylene (1993- 95), brassinosteroids (1997) and cytokinins (2001) have been identified and the genes that encode them cloned. Primary response genes and elements of hormonal signal transduction have also been identified for most known phytohormones. There is now little doubt that phytohormones, like their animal counterparts, function as signal molecules and create a signalling network in the whole plant organism. The in vivo activity of hormones depends, among other things, on their rate of biosynthesis and metabolism, and on their transport into and out of target cells. Consequently, genes and enzymes involved in these processes are of particular interest. In recent years a number of genes encoding enzymes for the synthesis, modification and degradation of different phytohormones have been cloned and identified, as have genes encoding proteins involved in phytohormone transport and its regulation. Some classes of phytohormone have been shown to participate in stress reactions and can increase the resistance of plants to unfavorable environmental factors.

The new edition of this work includes an appendix listing criteria for the identification of ichnotaxa. It covers all aspects of tiering trace fossil diversity and ichnoguilds, and is aimed at advanced undergraduates and postgraduates in palaeoecology, paleobiology and sedimentology.

The interpretation of ancient sedimentary environments is a vital tool in the search for petroleum, coal and other economic resources. This fourth edition of this text has been rewritten to reflect advances in the subject, in particular stratigraphy and new geophysical techniques. New case studies have been added where appropriate.

Until now no overview of the Quaternary deposits of northeastern Europe has been available. This book fills the gap. It presents the state of research on Quaternary stratigraphy and geology, with emphasis on glacial deposits, discusses the general scientific ideas and gives an overview of the methods of investigation, some of which have rarely been applied elsewhere. It has become apparent that the region covered has many environmental problems, and a proper understanding of the Quaternary deposits is a basic requirement for dealing with them. The same is true for civil engineering. In the formerly glaciated areas almost all construction sites for roads and houses will encounter glacial deposits. This volume provides an authoritative and fascinating overview for anyone planning to venture into this field. In its 53 regional chapters the book covers Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, the Czech Republic and eastern Germany. From the text it becomes clear that not all the stratigraphical schemes are yet fully compatible or comprehensible. There can be no doubt, however, that the east was subjected to very extensive ice advances during the earlier Pleistocene. Also, in contrast to western Europe, there was a significant Early Weichselian ice advance, although not as extensive as the last, Late Weichselian event. The book is illustrated by 421 figures and 74 colour plates (mostly photographs). There are 23 tables, a detailed index and a list of over 1000 references, providing a unique collection of northeastern European geoscience literature, much of which has so far escaped the attention of western scientists. The volume, composed of contributions by 60 scientists, completes the trilogy on glacial deposits of northern Europe. Together with its two companion volumes, the Glacial deposits in North-West Europe and the Glacial Deposits in Great Britain and Ireland, it represents an invaluable source of information for the geoscientist, the advanced student or the amateur.

This book presents the most relevant articles selected from the annals of the symposium. In the last few years, Brazilian Geomorphology has experienced a series of epistemological and methodological innovations expressed by the incorporation of the complexity paradigm, by the progressive break with the climate paradigm, by the emergency role of new theories, and by the advances in methodological fields favored by the adherence to geochronological techniques and in function of the increasingly widespread use of geotechnologies. Furthermore, the Anthropocene/Technogene emerge claims to be more than only a temporal cuts, but as conceptions of a science engaged with social and environmental issues. The National Symposium of Geomorphology, in the maturity of its 13th edition, constitutes a portrait and an important sample of Brazilian geomorphological production, aggregating works carried out in the most diverse types of landscapes of Brazil. The book provides an overview of the current scientific production of Brazilian Geomorphology, highlighting the diversity of landscapes and geoheritage in Brazil, the complexity of the morphogenetic and morphodynamic processes responsible for shaping its surface, and the various abundant methodologies used in geomorphological studies in tropical areas.

This new edition of Soil Erosion Research Methods retains the themes and layout of the first edition. However, most chapters have been revised and some additional chapters have been added. There are new chapters on modeling wind and water erosion. Extensive revisions and updating have been done in chapters dealing with assessment of erosivity and erodibility, erosion, crop productivity, measuring sediment yield from river basins and field plot techniques. There is extensive updating of current statistics on the global magnitude of soil erosion by water and wind and on denudation rates. Several new authors have made significant improvements in revising and updating available information.

Humic Substances color all waters more or less brown. Their concentrations exceed all carbon of living organisms by at least one order of magnitude. Opposite to former paradigms, they participate in almost any metabolic pathway. They protect against UV-irradation, enable indirect photolysis and, thus, purify hazardous chemicals, they provide inorganic and organic nutrients, may form cryptic genes with DNA and dampen metabolic fluctuations. More recently they can increase adverse effects of hazardous chemicals and they can directly interfere with organisms. The book tries to relate effects to structural features.

This book brings together many of the world s leading experts in the fields of Antarctic terrestrial soil ecology, providing a comprehensive and completely up-to-date analysis of the status of Antarctic soil microbiology.

Antarctic terrestrial soils represent one of the most extreme environments on Earth.Once thought to be largely sterile, it is now known that these diverse and often specialized extreme habitats harbor a very wide range of different microorganisms.

Antarctic soil communities are relatively simple, but not unsophisticated. Recent phylogenetic and microscopic studies have demonstrated that these communities have well established trophic structuring and play a significant role in nutrient cycling in these cold and often dry desert ecosystems. They are surprisingly responsive to change and potentially sensitive to climatic perturbation.

Antarctic terrestrial soils also harbor specialized refuge habitats, where microbial communities develop under (and within) translucent rocks. These cryptic habitats offer unique models for understanding the physical and biological drivers of community development, function and evolution."

Agroforestry reserach and development in Australia has been largely fragmented and many of the research results have never been published and are unknown. The purpose of this volume is to comprehensively review all of the research that has taken place in the field of agroforestry in Australia, including previously unpublished results, providing readers with the latest technical and economic information about using trees in agriculture for the control of salinity and erosion, for shelter and shade, and for the production of timber, fodder and minor forest products. The book provides information concerning planted trees within all of these categories and includes special review of the management of native vegetation on farms. These papers also examine research needs where appropriate. This book stems from the National Australian Conference on 'The Role of Trees in Sustainable Agriculture' which took place in Albury, Victoria, Australia in October, 1991. Each national review paper is based upon a summary of six or more state review research and development papers, prepared specifically for the national conference. The book thus provides readers with a comprehensive overview of agroforestry rsearch in Australia, which is introduced and summarised in the first chapter.

The importance to preserve soil and water have is increasingly recognized. Agricultural practices and ecological trends both affect and are affected by soil physical properties. The more frequency of natural disasters, as landslides and thunderstorms addresses the importance to integrate soil characteristics in predictive models. Soil physics research has grown considerably specially in the use of innovative sensors, soil databases, and modeling techniques have been introduced into soil water relationship and environmental monitoring. Those advances are thoroughly dispersed in articles and conference proceedings In this volume, the authors will bring together the effectiveness of many new field and lab sensors and examine the current state-of-the-art in modeling and data analysis. It also includes innovative approaches and case studies in tropical soils. Future directions in soil physics research are given by key researchers in this discipline.

Soil Fertility Evaluation and Control describes the theoretical background for practical applications of scientific work on the subject. The book emphasizes the use of response curves as the basic biological standard for both evaluation and control, and it discusses soil testing and plant analysis as secondary standards. The principal applications covered include fertilizer requirements, fertilizer evaluation, residual effects, fertilizer placement, liming, and economics of fertilization. Environmental aspects of plant nutrients and soil nutrient supplies as they pertain to crop production are also addressed.
Most of the information in Soil Fertility Evaluation and Control is drawn from recent world literature, which makes it a timely reference for soil scientists, agronomists, agriculturalists, foresters, and others interested in the evaluation and control of soil fertility.

This monograph provides the practising engineer with a concise overview of the methods of water diversion and exclusion or removal of sediment from the diverted water. The emphasis is on flow features and the associated conveyance of sediments.

The soil is the medium through which pollutants originating from human activities, both in agriculture and industry, move from the land surfaces to groundwater. Polluting substances are subject to complex physical, chemical and biological transformations during their movement through the soil. Their displacement depends on the transport properties of the water-air-soil system and on the molecular properties of the pollutants. Prediction of soil pollution and restoration of polluted soils requires an under standing of the processes controlling the fate of pollutants in the soil medium and of the dynamics of the contaminants in the un saturated zone. Our book was conceived. as a basic overview of the processes governing the behavior of pollutants as affected by soil constituents and environmental factors. It was written for the use of specialists working on soil and unsaturated zone pollution and restoration, as well as for graduate students starting research in this field. Since many specialists working on soil restoration lack a back ground in soil science or a knowledge of the properties of soil pollutants, we have included this information which forms the first part of the book. In the second part, we discuss the partitioning of pollutants between the aqueous, solid and gaseous phase of the soil medium. The retention, transformation and transport of pollutants in the soils form the third section."

THis new edition of this successful book has been thoroughly revised to take account of recent advances in our understanding of slope stability and instability. The book begins with a consideration of slope stability processes, including the evolution of natural slopes. Thebehaviour of soil and rocks, and the flow of water through them, (which is of fundamental importance to their shear strength), are explained in considerable detail. The principles and techniques of stability analysis are covered in two separate chapters. From this basic theory the author develops practical design criteria for new slopes, discusses remedial measures for slope stabilization, and provides guidance on investigation of landslides. Computer programs to facilitate analysis and design are discussed where appropriate, and the book concludes with several carefully selected case histories, and design recommendations for man-made slopes.

This book addresses an important topic of food security in South Asia with specific reference to climate change. Of the 1 billion food insecure people in the world, more than 30% are in South Asia. The problem of food insecurity may be exacerbated by the projected climate change especially because of the water scarcity caused by rapid melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas and increase in variability in monsoonal rains and frequency of extreme events. Furthermore, large populations of Bangladesh and other coastal regions may be displaced by sea level rise. Thus, this volume addresses recommended land use and soil/water/crop/vegetation management practices which would enable land managers to adapt to climate disruption by enhancing soil/ecosystem/social resilience. In addition to biophysical factors, this book also addresses the issues related to human dimensions including social, ethnical and political considerations.

The editors invited engineers, who are engaged in not only advanced level geotechnical analyses but also in consulting practice, to write various chapters of this text. These chapters show that a blend of engineering judgement and advanced principles of engineering mechanics may be used to resolve many complex geotechnical engineering problems. It is hoped that these may inspire the geotechnical engineering practice to make more extensive use of them in future. The complex geometrical configurations as well as enormously difficult materials which exhibit strongly path dependent mechanical behaviour have required the development of the advanced computer-based geotechnical analyses presented in this book. A non-linear transient finite element formulation is developed for the complex interaction between fluid and solid skeleton for both static and dynamic loading. Construction methods (for example: compaction, excavation, retaining walls or pile driving) which influence the mechanical behaviour of geotechnical structures are described with modifications to the finite element formulation. The use of the finite layer approach is rehearsed for situations where soil properties do not vary

The concept of using mathematical models to investigate crop growth and productivity has attracted much attention in recent years. A major reason is that modelling can allow an expert in one area to assess the impact of his ideas in the light of other advances in our understanding of crop performance. Whether or not many of the claims made for or the demands made of models can ever be satisfied, this role as a focus for quantitative definition of crop growth is an important one. One consequence is that the development and appraisal of such models requires the efforts of scientists from a wide range of disciplines. This NATO Advanced Research workshop was designed to bring together such a range of scientists to consider the wheat crop, and assess our understanding of the crop and our ability to model its growth and yield. The ideas and organization behind the workshop involved many people. The U. K. interest in a computer model of wheat growth was instigated by Dr. Joe Landsberg (then of Long Ashton Research Station, but now Director of CSIRO Division of Forest Research), who in 1979 started a modelling exercise as part of a collaborative study of the causes of yield variation in winter wheat, involving four research institutes supported by the Agricultural and Food Research Council. Dr.

Drawing on contributions from more than thirty scholars and experts in the field, this book examines the role of business as an enabler, as an inhibitor, and ultimately as a co-actor in global sustainability transformations expected over the next few decades. The Role of Business in Global Sustainability Transformations employs several theoretical perspectives and provides abundant examples and cases to discuss a variety of emerging concepts, phenomena, and trends shaping business sustainability. Weaving through the chapters, the editors present core tensions and sources of inertia towards transformative change, and acknowledge that envisioning multiple solutions and pathways are possible and desirable. They advocate for the need to align visions, actions and time horizons between policy, society and business in addressing the interlinked socio-ecological challenges that our society currently faces. This book will be an important resource for scholars and professionals working in the field of sustainability and sustainable business, and a vital educational text for students interested in this discipline.