European Geosciences Union
Division on Soil System Sciences
President: Claudio Zaccone (sss@egu.eu)
Deputy President: Bas van Wesemael
(bas.vanwesemael@uclouvain.be)
Soil is the interface between the crust and atmosphere, and is the basis of life on earth. The impact of Soil Science to the society has probably never been as high as it is currently. The importance of soils in the Earth System must make us, the soil scientists, more noticeable at the EGU.
The aim of the SSS is to coordinate the EGU scientific programme on Soil Science and related activities. The SSS contributes actively with EGU by promoting scientific interchange and dissemination of activity carried out by members.
The EGU has issued an open letter to funding agencies and evaluation committees with information on the assessment of presentations given at its scientific meetings.
The letter details the three presentation types given at EGU General Assembly and states that the selection of the type of presentation is not based on any evaluation of the scientific value of the contribution. This letter emphasises that there is no distinction regarding the standing, quality or prestige of oral, poster, or PICO presentations.
Lily Pereg, Deputy President and Programme Group Chair of the EGU Soil System Sciences (SSS) Division and Executive Editor of the SOIL journal, died tragically and unexpectedly earlier this month during a trip to Argentina.
Pereg was a microbiologist with 25 years of research experience and an associate professor at the School of Science and Technology, University of New England in Armidale, Australia. An EGU member since 2013, Pereg was elected to serve as president of the EGU SSS Division in Autumn 2017, a role she was due to take on in April this year.
Amazing soil pictures? Are you a photoartist? Share your work at Imaggeo, the open-access image repository of EGU.
Lorena M. Zavala (Univ. of Sevilla) holds a soil
aggregate composed of organic matter from a
peatland from the Wicklow Mountains (Ireland)
The 2019 Philippe Duchaufour Medal is awarded to Claire Chenu for outstanding research in the field of soil science, with special emphasis on pioneering conceptual work on the microbial-mineral interactions and organic matter dynamics in soil.
The 2019 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award is awarded to Bahar S. Razavi for outstanding contributions to the understanding of biogeochemical processes in terrestrial ecosystems, in particular the effects of abiotic factors on soil organic matter and nutrient cycling.
The 2018 Philippe Duchaufour Medal is awarded to Yakov A. Pachepsky for outstanding research in the field of soil hydraulic properties and the fate of pathogens in soils, which greatly influenced the development of soil science.
The 2018 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award is awarded to Matthias Vanmaercke for his outstanding research on understanding the rates and impacts of soil erosion and catchment sediment export at regional and continental scales.
The 2018 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Cosimo Brogi Geophysics-based subsurface conceptualization for improved prediction of plant productivity beyond field scale
The 2018 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Mathieu Le Breton Landslide displacement monitoring with passive RFID
The 2018 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Mutez A. Ahmed Where do maize roots take up water? The importance of different root type
The 2018 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Paola M. Mafla Endara Colonization of a pristine soil environment – Microbial migration into micro-engineered Soil Chips buried in field soils
The 2018 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Thomas Laemmel Effect of local airflow on flux chamber measurements
This month the EGU President Alberto Montanari wrote an open letter to funding agencies with information on the assessment of presentations given at EGU scientific meetings. The letter emphasises that there is no distinction regarding the standing, quality or prestige of oral, poster, or PICO presentations at the EGU General Assembly and recommends that funding agencies do not use presentation type as a criterion for assessing the scientific value of contributions.
In other important news this month, the EGU has launched Weather and Climate Dynamics, a new open-access, two-stage journal with open review dedicated to the publication and public discussion of high-quality research on dynamical processes in the atmosphere. The journal is now open for submissions.
Next month brings two important EGU deadlines. The call for candidates for EGU Union President, General Secretary and Division Presidents is open until 15 September: we encourage EGU members to nominate themselves or propose a candidate. Before that, 5 September is the deadline to submit session proposals and short course ideas to the EGU General Assembly 2020. Contribute to the conference programme by submitting your proposals.