The continued life of a classic in conservation literature

Excerpt

In 1974, the Soil and Water Conservation Society (then called the Soil Conservation Society of America) published an important monograph in humble packaging—manuscript typed pages and blue cardstock cover, but filled with exquisite maps, groundbreaking methods, and significant conclusions. The book, entitled Man-Induced Soil Erosion on the Southern Piedmont, was written by a young researcher named Stanley Wayne Trimble.

The work sold regularly over the years and continues to yield many citations; the society kept it in print with several additional printings. Decades later, in November 2007, the last copy of the latest printing was sold and I, as director of publications, was faced with the decision to reprint again, let the title go out of print, or investigate the possibility of a new edition.

I was pleased to find Stan Trimble agreeable and willing to help. What he produced was greater than I even hoped for—a new preface that provides an insightful overview of what led him to write the original work and a set of lessons learned from the study looking back on it some 35 years later.

The new edition also has a new foreword by Andrew Goudie of Oxford University. Goudie remarks that Man-Induced Soil Erosion …