The U.S. Air Force used the chlorinated pesticide, chlordane, to control termites around base housing until it was banned in 1988. As bases are closed, contracted, or realigned, soil issues associated with this pesticide must be addressed. One issue that is not well understood is chlordane volatility. There are documented cases where chlordane applied to soil resulted in vapor intrusion into bu...

Soil ingestion estimates were obtained from a stratified, simple random sample of 64 children aged 1-4 years residing on a superfund site in Montana. The study was conducted during the month of September for 7 consecutive days. The study utilized a mass-balance methodology in which eight naturally occurring soil tracers (Al, Si, Ti, Ce, Nd, La, Y, and Zr) believed to be poorly absorbed by the g...

The soil surface roughness is one of the most susceptible to variation in time and space characteristic, and depends on many variables like cultivation practices or soil aggregation. Various indices are used for its quantification, in microscale soil roughness is commonly expressed by HSD calculated from DEM of small sample area. The source of DEM can be close range photogramethry or laser scan...

The soil health index is an approach for assessing the ecological potential of a soil. The index is based on a physical, chemical, and biological characterization and rating of soil conditions. The approach is flexible, permits comparisons amongst soils with widely different properties and contaminant levels, and it can be adapted to site specific conditions. The rationale and development of th...

Mozambique includes 10 agroecological zones with distinct climate and cropping systems (INIA, 1980). Agricultural production is more intensively practiced in the central and northern parts of the country where agroecological conditions are favorable. As a result of 16 years of civil war and low funding for agricultural research few assessments of soil nutrient status have been possible. To asse...

Soil spectroscopy has experienced a tremendous increase in soil property characterisation, and can be used not only in the laboratory but also from the space (imaging spectroscopy). Partial least squares (PLS) regression is one of the most common approaches for the calibration of soil properties using soil spectra. Besides functioning as a calibration method, PLS can also be used as a dimension...

An important aspect for estimating optimal N applications is to predict the soil N supply capacity (ability to supply plant-available N) each year. Since fertilizer applications supplement crop N requirements that the soil system cannot meet, understanding potential plant-available N originating from the soil can aid in setting N fertilization rates. General differences in plantavailable N and ...

Soil microorganisms mediate belowand aboveground processes, but it is dif®cult to monitor such organisms because of the inherent cryptic nature of the soil. Traditional `blind' sampling methods yield high sample variance. Coupled with low sample size, this results in low statistical power and thus high type II error rates. Consequently, when null hypotheses are rejected they are dif®cult to int...