A future for soil science

Excerpt

The discipline of soil science is experiencing a profound crisis. Every few months, it seems, another soil science department in some university in the world changes its name to one in which the word “soil” no longer appears. Growing numbers of researchers are also lobbying for newly-concocted expressions like “hydropedol-ogy” or “critical zone science” to replace the allegedly outmoded appellation of “soil science.” These trends are accompanied by a sharp decrease in the clientele of most soil science programs. Results of institutional and graduate student surveys carried out in 1992 and 2004 indicate that enrollment in M.Sc. and Ph.D. programs in soil science in U.S. and Canadian universities has dropped on average by about 40 percent during the past decade (Baveye et al., 2006). Similar declines are also manifest in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, where most university-based soil science units have disappeared. In terms of publications, the number of peer-reviewed articles on soils-related issues published every year has grown exponentially in the last two decades, with a very significant acceleration in the last five years. There is undeniable interest in soils …