Features:

• Thoroughly updated and modernized discussions of key topics
• Presents issues in a modern, integrated approach that reflects the significantly changed scientific understanding of recent years
• Carefully screened, reliable Internet links
• Added and improved technical detail boxes
• Added and improved vignette boxes
• Highlights fascinating real-world anecdotes and applications to capture the reader's interest and imagination
• Ecological approach
• A section on septic tank drain fields
• Irrigation management coverage
• A section on wetlands and their poorly aerated soils
• Engineering properties of soils
• Concepts of soil quality, soil degradation, and soil resilience
• Extended captions and notes on figures and tables
• Unique schematic diagrams and photographs
• Cross referencing

Elements of the Nature and Properties of Soils 2nd Edition opens the reader's eyes to the fascinating and important world of soils, and the principles that can be used to minimize the degradation and destruction of one of our most important natural resources.

Concentrating on essentials, this edition maintains its high standards of rigor and readability, and its priority of explaining this science in a manner relevant to many fields of study. It provides a fundamental knowledge that is a prerequisite to meeting the many natural-resource challenges awaiting humanity in the 21st century.

Contents

1. The Soils Around Us
2. Formation of Soils from Parent Materials
3. Soil Classification
4. Soil Architecture and Physical Properties
5. Soil Water: Characteristics and Behavior
6. Soil and the Hydrologic Cycle
7. Soil Aeration and Temperature
8. The Colloidal Fraction: Seat of Soil Chemical and Physical Activity
9. Soil Acidity, Alkalinity, and Salinity
10. Organisms and Ecology of the Soil
11. Soil Organic Matter
12. Nitrogen and Sulfur Economy of Soils
13. Soil Phosphorus, Potassium, and Micronutrients
14. Practical Nutrient Management
15. Soil Erosion and Its Control

Appendix A: Canadian and FAO Soil Classification Systems
Appendix B: SI Units, Conversion Factors, and Periodic Table of the Elements

Glossary of Science Terms
Index

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