HUMANITY'S TRANSFORMATION OF EARTH'S SOIL: PEDOLOGY'S NEW FRONTIER
Abstract
Pedology was born in the 18th and 19th centuries, when soil was first conceived as a natural body worthy of its own scientific investigation. For well over a century, pedology explored soil as a system developed from a complex of natural processes. By the mid-20th century, however, human activities began to affect substantial global soil changes with influence on the dynamics of the Earth's environment. Such anthropedogenesis was first defined as "metapedogenesis" by Yaalon and Yaron (1966), a definition that we propose here to be as important to the development of pedology as the natural-body concept of soil first articulated by Dokuchaev and Hilgard more than a century ago. In this article, we distinguish between humanity's contemporary and historic influences on soil, as it is increasingly important for ecosystem analysis and management to distinguish contemporary changes that are overlain on those from the past. Although our understanding of global soil change is strikingly elementary, it is fundamental to establishing greater management control over Earth's rapidly changing ecosystems. Humanity's transformation of Earth's soil challenges scientists to develop a pedology with broad purview and decades' time scale, a pedology that supports the science and management of the environment, ecosystems, and global change.
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Agricultural practices including tillage, manuring, burning, composting, and use of chemical fertilizers alter the chemistry and isotopic composition of nitrogen and phosphorus in soils and plant and animal remains.
“Agricultural practices, including tillage, manuring, burning, composting, and use of chemical fertilizers, alter the chemistry and isotopic composition of nitrogen and phosphorus in soils and plant and animal remains (85, 89, 90).”
From Used planet: a global history (2013) · cites this paper as [89]
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- Authors
- Richter, D. D.
- Affiliations
- Duke University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Richter, Daniel deB.
- ORCID
- Richter, Daniel deB.
- Venue
- Soil Science
- Published
- 2007-12
- Volume
- 172
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 957-967
- ISSN
- 0038-075X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2129647661
- Cited by
- 195
- References
- 68
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 9.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Soil Science (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil and Environmental Studies
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Science and Environmental Management
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil erosion and sediment transport
- Keywords
- anthropogenic soil change, history of pedology, human impact on soil, ecosystem management, global change
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