Recommended Reading

Here are some suggested readings that illuminate various aspects of soi science, soil physics, hydrology, agriculture, and related topics.

 

• Popular Press
  1. Why global water shortages pose threat of terror and war . The Observer. Feb. 8, 2014.
  2. Walmart diverts food waste from landfills to farms. Environmental Leader. Feb. 11, 2014.
  3. Water cleaning technology could help farmers. New York Times. Feb. 16, 2014.
  4. Cattle price tumble amid eastern Australia's drought. BBC News. Mar. 4, 2014.
• General Soil Science
  1. Nelson, P.J. 1997. To hold the land: Soil erosion, agricultural scientists, and the development of conservation tillage techniques. Agricultural History 71:71-90.
  2. Baveye, P.C., D. Rangel, A.R. Jacobson, M. Laba, C. Darnault, W. Otten, R. Radulovich, and F.A.O. Camargo. 2011. From dust bowl to dust bowl: Soils are still very much a frontier of science. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 75:2037-2048.10.2136/sssaj2011.0145.
• Soil Water Balance
  1. Legates, D., and G. McCabe Jr. 2005. A re-evaluation of the average annual global water balance. Physical Geography 26:467-479.
  2. Hu, Z., G. Yu, Y. Zhou, X. Sun, Y. Li, P. Shi, Y. Wang, X. Song, Z. Zheng, L. Zhang, and S. Li. 2009. Partitioning of evapotranspiration and its controls in four grassland ecosystems: Application of a two-source model. Agr. Forest Meteorol. 149:1410-1420.
  3. Zhou, Y. 2009. A critical review of groundwater budget myth, safe yield and sustainability. Journal of Hydrology 370:207-213.
  4. Savenije, H.H.G. 2004. The importance of interception and why we should delete the term evapotranspiration from our vocabulary. Hydrological Processes 18:1507-1511.
  5. Denmead, O.T., F.X. Dunin, R. Leuning, and M.R. Raupach. 1996. Measuring and modelling soil evaporation in wheat crops. Physics and Chemistry of The Earth 21:97-100.
  6. Leuning, R., A.G. Condon, F.X. Dunin, S. Zegelin, and O.T. Denmead. 1994. Rainfall interception and evaporation from soil below a wheat canopy. Agr. Forest Meteorol. 67:221-238.
  7. Dunkerley, D.L. 2009. Evaporation of impact water droplets in interception processes: Historical precedence of the hypothesis and a brief literature overview. Journal of Hydrology 376:599-604.
  8. Szilagyi, J., and J. Jozsa. 2009. Complementary relationship of evaporation and the mean annual water-energy balance. Water Resour. Res. 45
  9. Xiao, H., R. Meissner, J. Seeger, H. Rupp, and H. Borg. 2009. Effect of vegetation type and growth stage on dewfall, determined with high precision weighing lysimeters at a site in northern Germany. Journal of Hydrology 377:43-49.
  10. Zha, T., A.G. Barr, G. van der Kamp, T.A. Black, J.H. McCaughey, and L.B. Flanagan. 2010. Interannual variation of evapotranspiration from forest and grassland ecosystems in western Canada in relation to drought. Agr. Forest Meteorol.
• Surface Energy Balance
  1. Ingwersen, J., K. Steffens, P. Högy, K. Warrach-Sagi, D. Zhunusbayeva, M. Poltoradnev, R. Gäbler, H.D. Wizemann, A. Fangmeier, V. Wulfmeyer, and T. Streck. 2011. Comparison of Noah simulations with eddy covariance and soil water measurements at a winter wheat stand. Agr. Forest Meteorol. 151:345-355.
• Agriculture and Water
  1. Hoff, H., M. Falkenmark, D. Gerten, L. Gordon, L. Karlberg, and J. Rockström. 2010. Greening the global water system. Journal of Hydrology 384:177-186.
  2. Scanlon, B.R., I. Jolly, M. Sophocleous, and L. Zhang. 2007. Global impacts of conversions from natural to agricultural ecosystems on water resources: Quantity versus quality. Water Resour. Res. 43:W03437.10.1029/2006wr005486.
  3. Liu, J., A.J.B. Zehnder, and H. Yang. 2009. Global consumptive water use for crop production: The importance of green water and virtual water. Water Resour. Res. 45:W05428.
  4. Blum, A. 2009. Effective use of water (euw) and not water-use efficiency (wue) is the target of crop yield improvement under drought stress. Field Crops Research 112:119-123.
  5. Grassini, P., H. Yang, and K.G. Cassman. 2009. Limits to maize productivity in western corn-belt: A simulation analysis for fully irrigated and rainfed conditions. Agr. Forest Meteorol. 149:1254-1265.
  6. Rockström, J., L. Karlberg, S.P. Wani, J. Barron, N. Hatibu, T. Oweis, A. Bruggeman, J. Farahani, and Z. Qiang. 2010. Managing water in rainfed agriculture--the need for a paradigm shift. Agricultural Water Management 97:543-550.
  7. Bossio, D., K. Geheb, and W. Critchley. 2010. Managing water by managing land: Addressing land degradation to improve water productivity and rural livelihoods. Agricultural Water Management 97:536-542.
  8. Steduto, P., T. Hsiao, and E. Fereres. 2007. On the conservative behavior of biomass water productivity. Irrigation Science 25:189-207.
  9. Perry, C., P. Steduto, R.G. Allen, and C.M. Burt. 2009. Increasing productivity in irrigated agriculture: Agronomic constraints and hydrological realities. Agricultural Water Management 96:1517-1524.
  10. Scanlon, B.R., R.C. Reedy, and J.B. Gates. 2010. Effects of irrigated agroecosystems: 1. Quantity of soil water and groundwater in the southern High Plains, Texas. Water Resour. Res. 46:W09537 10.1029/2009wr008427.
  11. Scanlon, B.R., J.B. Gates, R.C. Reedy, W.A. Jackson, and J.P. Bordovsky. 2010. Effects of irrigated agroecosystems: 2. Quality of soil water and groundwater in the southern High Plains, Texas. Water Resour. Res. 46:W09538 10.1029/2009wr008428.
  12. Cai, X.L., and B.R. Sharma. 2010. Integrating remote sensing, census and weather data for an assessment of rice yield, water consumption and water productivity in the Indo-Gangetic river basin. Agricultural Water Management 97:309-316.
  13. Stambaugh, M.C., R.P. Guyette, E.R. McMurry, E.R. Cook, D.M. Meko, and A.R. Lupo. 2011. Drought duration and frequency in the U.S. Corn belt during the last millennium (ad 992-2004). Agr. Forest Meteorol. 151:154-162.
  14. Anderson, W.K. 2010. Closing the gap between actual and potential yield of rainfed wheat. The impacts of environment, management and cultivar. Field Crops Research 116:14-22.
  15. Zhang, Y.K., and K.E. Schilling. 2006. Increasing streamflow and baseflow in Mississippi River since the 1940's: Effect of land use change. Journal of Hydrology 324:412-422.
  16. Nielsen, D.C., and M.F. Vigil. 2010. Precipitation storage efficiency during fallow in wheat-fallow systems. Agron. J. 102:537-543.
  17. Fraser, E.D.G., E. Simelton, M. Termansen, S.N. Gosling, and A. South. 2013. “Vulnerability hotspots”: Integrating socio-economic and hydrological models to identify where cereal production may decline in the future due to climate change induced drought. Agr. Forest Meteorol. 170:195-205.
• Soil Physical Properties
  1. Touma, J. 2009. Comparison of the soil hydraulic conductivity predicted from its water retention expressed by the equation of van Genuchten and different capillary models. Eur. J. Soil Sci. 60:671-680.
  2. Lu, Z., and J.M. Sabatier. 2009. Effects of soil water potential and moisture content on sound speed. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 73:1614-1625.
  3. Beaudette, D.E., and A.T. O'Geen. 2010. An iphone application for on-demand access to digital soil survey information. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 74:1682-1684.
• Soil Physical Theory
  1. Narasimhan, T.N., 2009. The dichotomous history of diffusion. Physics Today July 2009, p.48-53.
  2. Dexter, A.R., and G. Richard. 2009. Water potentials produced by oven-drying of soil samples. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 73:1646-1651.
  3. Rose, W. 1991. Richards' assumptions and Hassler's presumptions. Transport in Porous Media 6:91-99.
  4. Corey, A.T., W.D. Kemper, and J.H. Dane. 2010. Revised model for molecular diffusion and advection. Vadose Zone J. 9:85-94.10.2136/vzj2009.0082.
• Soil Physical Processes
  1. Haas, A., and A. Revil. 2009. Electrical burst signature of pore-scale displacements. Water Resour. Res. 45:10.1029/2009wr008160.
• Hydrologic Mapping
  1. Dow, K., R.L. Murphy, and G.J. Carbone. 2009. Consideration of User Needs and Spatial Accuracy in Drought Mapping. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 45:187-197.
• Carbon and Nitrogen Balances
  1. Ammann, C., C. Spirig, J. Leifeld, and A. Neftel. 2009. Assessment of the nitrogen and carbon budget of two managed temperate grassland fields. Agr. Ecosyst. Environ. 133:150-162.
  2. Goidts, E., B.v. Wesemael, and M. Crucifix. 2009. Magnitude and sources of uncertainties in soil organic carbon (SOC) stock assessments at various scales. Eur. J. Soil Sci. 60:723-739.
  3. Prince, S.D., J. Haskett, M. Steininger, H. Strand, and R. Wright. 2001. Net primary production of U.S. Midwest croplands from agricultural harvest yield data. Ecological Applications 11:1194-1205.
  4. Paustian, K., J. Six, E.T. Elliott, and H.W. Hunt. 2000. Management options for reducing CO2 emissions from agricultural soils. Biogeochemistry 48:147-163.
  5. Garten Jr, C.T., J.L. Smith, D.D. Tyler, J.E. Amonette, V.L. Bailey, D.J. Brice, H.F. Castro, R.L. Graham, C.A. Gunderson, R.C. Izaurralde, P.M. Jardine, J.D. Jastrow, M.K. Kerley, R. Matamala, M.A. Mayes, F.B. Metting, R.M. Miller, K.K. Moran, W.M. Post Iii, R.D. Sands, C.W. Schadt, J.R. Phillips, A.M. Thomson, T. Vugteveen, T.O. West, and S.D. Wullschleger. 2010. Intra-annual changes in biomass, carbon, and nitrogen dynamics at 4-year old switchgrass field trials in west Tennessee, USA. Agr Ecosyst Environ 136:177-184.
• Argicultural in sub-Saharan Africa
  1. Giller, K.E., E. Witter, M. Corbeels, and P. Tittonell. 2009. Conservation agriculture and smallholder farming in africa: The heretics' view. Field Crops Research 114:23-34.
  2. Mucheru-Muna, M., P. Pypers, D. Mugendi, J. Kung'u, J. Mugwe, R. Merckx, and B. Vanlauwe. 2010. A staggered maize-legume intercrop arrangement robustly increases crop yields and economic returns in the highlands of central kenya. Field Crops Research 115:132-139.
• On the conduct of science
  1. Hooke, W. 2015. Reaffirming the Social Contract Between Science and Society. Eos. 96. doi:10.1029/2015EO026333.
  2. Pannell, D.J. 2002. Prose, psychopaths and persistence: Personal perspectives on publishing. Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie 50:101-115.
• Soil and Human Health
  Patz, J.A. 1998. Predicting key malaria transmission factors, biting and entomological inoculation rates, using modelled soil moisture in Kenya. Tropical Medicine & International Health 3: 818-827. doi:10.1046/j.1365-3156.1998.00309.x.

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Recommended Viewing

Note:  The inclusion of a video in this list does not imply agreement with the statements within the video nor with the opinions of the speaker.  These videos are intended to be helpful by inspiring thought and creativity.

 

• Soil and Water
  1. USDA-NRCS, "The living kingdoms beneath our feet", Brief description: This video explores the living kingdoms beneath our feet and helps illustrate the fact that soils support more life beneath their surface than what exists above the surface
  2. Global Soil Partnership, "Soils: Our ally against climate change", Brief description: A look at how our Soils help to combat climate change in their role of sequestering CO2, and how our collective habits can damage this benefit with potentially devastating consequences.
  3. Deborah Koons Garcia, "Symphony of the Soil", Brief description: Trailer for full length film. "Drawing from ancient knowledge and cutting edge science, Symphony of the Soil is an artistic exploration of the miraculous substance soil." 
• Global Issues
  1. Hans Rosling, "200 years, 200 countries, 4 minutes", Brief description: Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Dr. Rosling provides an interesting perspective on the world we live in.
  2. Bob Stewart, "Global Agricultural and Environmental Issues", Brief description:  Dr. Stewart reflects on career in soil and water conservation spanning more than 50 years and describes why the approaches of the past will not be adequate to meet the global agricultural and environmental challenges facing the world today.
  3. Evan Fraser, "Feeding Nine Billion", Brief description: Dr. Fraser guides you through a whiteboard presentation of his solution to the Global Food Crisis.
• Just for Fun
  1. Matt Kuchta, "Settling Sand: A Study in Non-Stokes' Deposition", Brief description: Color-coded plastic sediment falling through water recorded with a high speed camera.
  2. Moses Hacmon, "Sound Waves in Water", Brief description: This artistic video show remarkable images of sound waves propagating through water.
  3. Enriquez et al. (2011), "Freezing Singularities in Water Drops", Brief description: This fluid dynamics video shows how a drop of water freezes into a singular shape when deposited on a cold surface and the amazing thing that happens next.
  4. US Forest Service, "The Adventures of Junior Raindrop", Brief description: Vintage 1948 animated educational film telling the story of "Junior Raindrop" and the role of watershed management in preventing Junior from running wild.