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Academic Papers & Books

Animist approaches that emphasise liveliness and reciprocal relationships can be helpful in educating young children about soils, suggests a study from Western Australia. Children were invited to engage with soils through touching, listening, drawing, painting, and coming up with stories where soils acted as protagonists.

 

A study in the Montado, Southern Iberia, shows that farmers invest in soil regeneration because of strong environmental and ethical commitments, in addition to economic interests. A key challenge they face is a lack of advisory services that would specifically focus on soil health, which creates uncertainty and limits farmers' ability to move towards regenerative agriculture.

 

Should we pursue transdisciplinary soil research? A recent commentary on transdisciplinary soil research argues that this approach can be counterproductive, and advocates for more focus on science communication. It is surprising that the commentary does not make any mention of social sciences, humanities and the arts in aiding soil scientist address the challenge of stakeholder engagement.

 

An important conversation about the need for a new paradigm for measuring soil health has been taking place over the last couple of years, starting with this paper proposing a new theory of soil health. Authors write that “our challenge is to conceive the most effective ways of deploying a metaphor like “soil health” for the purposes of soil monitoring and management so it can be readily understood and adopted by governments and stakeholders, whilst safeguarding the underlying scientific veracities and fundamental understanding upon which it is based” and propose an interdisciplinary “new theory of soil health, focusing on the signs of life, diversity, function, complexity, connectivity and, most importantly, resultant emergence in soils”. This led to a response by Johan Bouma, and an interesting response from the authors. 

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Soil Research​

The Centre for Anthropocene History at KTH Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and Duke University Press are pleased to announce the upcoming launch of Anthropocene History, the first scholarly journal dedicated to exploring the historical dimensions of the Anthropocene. Developed by the Centre for Anthropocene History team, Anthropocene History is a platinum open access journal that provides a unique forum for understanding the intertwined histories of humans and the Earth in an era of profound planetary change. The first issue of the journal will be published in October 2026, after which issues will be published biannually. We are welcoming contributions for the inaugural and subsequent issues. We are in the process of setting up the journal’s official website as well as online submission portal. Until that process is complete, submissions can be sent to the Centre for Anthropocene History at anthropocene@kth.se

 

Contribute to the Soil Curiosity Kit, a “Soil Literacy Cookbook” featuring hands-on activities designed to spark curiosity about soil. The kit is adaptable to a wide range of formal, non-formal, and informal education settings, using simple, affordable materials and requiring no specialised or technical knowledge from educators or facilitators.

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SOIL & WATER is an ambitious artistic research project collaboratively developed in Pretoria, South Africa. Initiated by Prof. Johan Thom (Pretoria), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Basak Senova (Vienna) and the NIROX Foundation in South Africa, “SOIL & WATER is uniquely positioned to serve as a dynamic, modular platform for in-depth reflection on the delicate balance between soil and water - the two key material substances that define and support the continued existence of life on earth. The project outcomes comprise a series of public exhibitions, artist residencies, public programmes including dialogues, performances and concerts, a community engagement and research initiative, and finally, a publication.” 

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Soil Policy

​The Soil Monitoring Law is here. Final approval at EU Parliament! What are your thoughts about the Directive? Are you celebrating, or worried? Rapporteur for the Soil Monitoring Law and Vice President of the European Parliament, Slovakian Martin Hojsík (Renew Europe): “We made sure that there are no, and I repeat no, obligations on farmers and foresters in the new law. We made sure that there is no, and I repeat no, paperwork and bureaucracy for farmers and foresters. What we delivered is a mandate that the Member States should help farmers and foresters in protecting their soil. That the Member States get better knowledge about the problems facing the soil. That there is a platform for collaboration.”

You can read the full documentation related to the Directive here.

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Call for Abstracts

CFP: The Language of Soil – Workshop Session at WCSS23

Join us for a special session hosted by Assistant Prof. Dr. Alexandra Toland and Assistant Prof. Dr. Katherine Lawless, current chair and nominated chair of IUSS Commission 4.5 History, Philosophy and Sociology of Soil Science, at the 23rd World Congress of Soil Science in Nanjing, China. The open-format session gives insight into the development of The Language of Soil – A Handbook for Transdisciplinary Research, an ambitious publication developed over the past four years with support of the IUSS. The book assembles a diverse collection “boundary objects” – concepts, tools, and methods that help bridge the languages of soil science, social science, the soil humanities and soil arts – offering a shared vocabulary for research, education, and practice. The session invites participants to speak about their contributions in a dialogue format that maps out how key terms from the handbook resonate within different fields of knowledge and practice. Read the handy how-to for abstract submission here. 

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The first international conference on soil degradation and restoration is taking place in Spain next summer - call for panels is now open. 

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CFP: SPECIAL SESSION 16: Land and Soil / Urbanised grounds – plural perspectives on land and soil at the 6th World Planning Schools Congress (WPSC) 2026, to be held in Finland from June 29 to July 3. Deadline for abstracts November 11th

This special session underlines the need to join forces, disciplinary and otherwise, to rethink planning with and through urban(ised) grounds. It explores perspectives that challenge the bird’s-eye view embodied in dominant planning and land management approaches, the commodifying gaze upon urban land that favours profit over justice or equity, and the anthropocentric visions that drive extractive practices on urban(ised) grounds.

Contributions may cover one or more of the following themes:

• Understandings of urban ground/land/soil from multiple spatial and material perspectives, which may include soil-sensitive and water-wise approaches to planning and urban design

• The role of urban land/soils in the territorialisation of planning approaches

• Links between urban(ised) grounds and territorial democracy

• Urban grounds, not only as ecological resources and places for blue-green infrastructure for climate adaptation, but as co-constitutive in more-than-human infrastructural relations

• Urban soils as tellers/signifiers of extractive translocal relations. This may include linking extractive practices across contexts, following translocal relations through soil research, and exploring care-based regenerative relations as alternatives

Session convenors: Anke Hagemann, Natacha Quintero González, Johanna Hoerning, Antoine Vialle, Eva Paton (TU Berlin, Germany)

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Oldies but Goodies​

Alfred Hartemink (Wisconsin) has a brand new book on the pedologist C.C. Nikiforoff, whose essay "Reappraisal of the Soil" in the mid-1950s riveted many! Hartemink has managed to uncover all sorts of incredibly important details about a special life, details previously forgotten and left behind!

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As soil classification systems were both crashing and being reassembled in the mid-20th century, Guy Smith was particularly important to the writing of Soil Taxonomy, a global-scale system that had been launched by the 1970s. THE GUY SMITH INTERVIEWS is a book in which Smith responded to questions about the new Soil Taxonomy from around the world! While some may criticize the Smith Interviews as being “only of historic interest", read closely, it is an education!​