Some major developments in soil science since the mid-1960s

Although the science of soil was established about 150 years ago with the m odern soil science taking off after the Second World War, the new Millenniu m has brought other challenges and new opportunities. Rapidly increasing po pulation in countries that can least afford it have made them food-insecure . With inadequate inputs in agriculture, developing countries are degrading their lands rapidly and destroying ecosystems. Affluence in the richer cou ntries has precipitated other problems hampering ecosystem functions and qu ality of land resources. These changing conditions have placed new demands on both the society and the soil science community. The latter has resulted in new areas of soil sub-disciplines such as land and soil quality, land d egradation and desertification, cycling of bio-geochemicals, soil pollution assessment and monitoring etc. Advances in information technology have als o enabled the science to meet the new demands of the enviro-centric world. In the last decade, noticeable changes are evident in methods and research priorities in the discipline. Soil resource assessment and monitoring is en tering a new era, in terms of quality of information produced by new inform ation technologies through the innovative use of Geographic Information Sys tems and remote sensing and significantly improving the acceptance and use of soil survey information. Electronic technology has dramatically increase d the demand for and ability to process more data. Other innovations have r esulted in quantitative approaches in soil genetic studies and demonstrated the integral role of soils in ecosystems. For global and regional resource assessment, concepts and procedures were refined. The World Reference Base for soil classification and the Global Soil and Terrain Database are the f irst steps towards standardisation and a more detailed assessment of global soils. The global assessment of human-induced land degradation and vulnera bility to desertification are benchmark products of the databases. Environm ental pollution and its effects on human and ecosystem health have become p ublic concerns and soil science has contributed to localising, quantifying, and developing mitigation technologies to address the problems. The challe nges of climate change and the charge to maintain ecologcal integrity have been met with technologies such as conservation tillage, agroforestry, prec ision agriculture etc. New concepts such as multi-functionality of land, so il quality, sustainability of agriculture and carbon sequestration, have em erged leading to new management strategies and an enhanced quality of life. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V, All rights reserved.