2018: Contributions of Soil Physics to the 21st World Congress of Soil Science: Beyond food and fuel

From 12.-17. In August, the 21st World Soil Science Congress took place in Rio de Janeiro with more than 2000 participants. The Soil Physics Commission of the IUSS was very well represented at the conference with three symposia. Two Divisional Symposia were offered: (1) Soil Structure Dynamics with 20 lectures in two sessions (Assessment and Evolution and Modeling and Fluxes) and a total of approximately 90 submissions; and (2) The overall role of soil physics in water conservation and food security about 50 submitted contributions and a lecture block. On the one hand, the number of contributions submitted shows that the soil structure is still a central topic in the soil physics community. On the other hand, soil physics can also make a contribution to using our dwindling resources (especially water) gently and to meet the challenges of increasing food demand. In an interdivisional symposium, three keynote lectures on the interactions between physical, biological and chemical processes in soils were presented. The German Soil Science Society was very well represented with contributions to micro- and macroscale processes (Rainer Horn, University of Kiel) and the spatial distribution of soil microorganisms in their habitats (Ellen Kander, University of Hohenheim), as well as at the conference as a whole. A third lecture was given by Eiko Kuramae (Netherlands Institute of Ecology) on the importance of different mechanisms of controlling the functions of the microbiome in soil. More intensive exchange, in particular between soil (micro) biology and soil physics, is certainly highly desirable for the future in order to better understand the diverse processes and interactions in soil habitats and their importance for soil functions.

2018: AG 3D / 4D Soil Model

The DBG working group 3-4D Soil Model met from 6.3.-7.3.2018 at the Institute of Soil Science and Geomorphology of the University of Tübingen; The host was Prof. Thomas Scholten. Mr. Marijn van der Meij (Wageningen, NL) gave a guest lecture on "Incorporating hydrological processes in soil and landscape evolution modeling: concepts and complications for structured soils." The 15 participants from universities and research institutions as well as state and federal institutions reported on their work and discussed intensively on both days the draft of a white paper on the use of 3D soil models on a country scale as a basis for mass balancing and for the parameterization of water and material household models and methods beyond the classical mapping. The topics included aspects of remote sensing, geophysics, data science, digital soil mapping, stochastic modeling, machine learning and their coupling. Case studies included eroded and compacted soils in agricultural landscapes from field to regional scales.

2018: Summer School for Flow and Transportation in Terrestrial Systems

This traditional training event was organized by Olaf Ippisch again this year and at the TU Clausthal from 2.-7. September 2018. Prof. Olaf Ippisch, Prof. Hans-Jörg Vogel and Dr. med. Steffen Schlüter as lecturers offered the predominantly international participants of the summer school a compact presentation of current concepts for flow and transport in the underground of terrestrial systems, always in conjunction with numerical simulation. As a novelty there was no guest lecturer this year. Instead, for the last day, the school moved to the meeting of Commission 1 (see above) in Braunschweig, where the participants met other researchers and presented their work as a poster or oral contribution.

2016: "Soil Physics and Soil Hydrology"

Joint Meeting of IUSS Comission 2.1 and DBG Commission 1 Braunschweig 1./2. September 2016

The DBG Commission I "Soil Physics and Soil Hydrology" organized from 1.-2. September 2016 its biannual meeting. The meeting will had a specific session dealing with the change of mechanical and hydraulic properties of soil by biological, chemical and physical factors. Prof.  Sacha Mooney, University of Nottingham, gave a keynote on "Seeing is Believing - Multi-scale imaging of root-soil interactions". Furthermore, the meeting offers an exchange for free topics of current soil physical research, according to the motto "My current interest". In addition to the dissemination of the latest findings also "unfinished" work and questions was welcome to stimulate the scientific discussions. This helped to identify current research trends in soil physics as represented by DBG members. Details are given on the Homepage of the Meeting.

2016: Soil imaging workshop

From 4.7.2016 - 7.7.2016, a DBG workshop "Combined analysis of biochemistry and structural complexity of soil via imaging", Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung – UFZ Halle (Saale) took place. Steffen Schlüter (UFZ), Carsten W. Müller (Technical University of Munich) and Thilo Eickhorst (Uni Bremen) provided for the first time a workshop on imaging methods in soil science. The workshop was supported by the Commissions I, II and III of the German Soil Science Society. Philippe Baveye (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) and other speakers geve keynote presentations.
Further information can be found on the website of the workshop.

Last update: 19.1.2019, W. Durner