Soil sciences are a cluster of scientific disciplines focused on the physical, chemical, biological, and mineralogical properties and processes of soils as natural bodies and as dynamic systems within the critical zone. They encompass soil genesis and classification (pedology), soil physics (water, gas, energy transport), soil chemistry (ion exchange, sorption, redox, nutrient cycling), and soil biology and ecology (microbial and faunal communities, decomposition, biogeochemical transformations). Soil sciences provide quantitative frameworks for understanding soil functions in terrestrial ecosystems, including carbon and nutrient cycling, plant growth support, contaminant fate, and regulation of hydrological processes, and underpin evidence-based management in agriculture, forestry, environmental remediation, and climate research.
Nearly two centuries of maize-based agriculture in the U.S. Midwest has halved soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks compared with tallgrass prairies native to the region. Replacing annual maize/soy cropping with perennial bioenergy ...
Agriculture
Aug 4, 2026
0
10
YCNCC Science Communications Fellow Samantha Tracy recently sat down with Wong to discuss the influence of soil fertility on tropical forests and their responses to global change. The study is published in the journal New ...
Ecology
Aug 4, 2026
0
14
Researchers find that soil aging of polyethylene microplastics has only a limited effect on their interactions with organic contaminants. Scientists have long worried that aging microplastics in soil could become increasingly ...
Environment
Aug 4, 2026
0
17
As we move closer to supporting a sustainable human presence on the moon, researchers are investigating how its soils can provide valuable resources and even grow food. An article in the Soil Science Society of America Journal ...
Planetary Sciences
Aug 3, 2026
0
13
Strengthening the bond between people and nature—that is the aim of a German–Dutch EU project involving Oldenburg. The reasoning behind this is that people who feel they are part of the environment are more likely to campaign ...
Environment
Jul 27, 2026
1
41
A new computer model is one of the first artificial intelligence tools to advance scientific discovery in agriculture and biogeochemistry and is 50 times more efficient than its predecessors, according to a study that offers ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jul 27, 2026
0
10
Scientists at the University of Lincoln have discovered a promising new way to help protect crops from one of climate change's growing threats to global food production—increasing soil salinity.
Cell & Microbiology
Jul 23, 2026
0
38
In cases of extreme drought, soil organic carbon does not improve crop yields, Colorado State University research has found. The finding contradicts the commonly held belief that soil organic carbon benefits yields most during ...
Ecology
Jul 23, 2026
0
112
Factors such as erosion, dehydration and soil compaction are jeopardizing food supplies for broad swaths of the world's population, according to a study by the University of Bonn, the University of Minnesota, the University ...
Agriculture
Jul 22, 2026
1
29
Erosion, salinization and shrinking numbers of organisms such as worms and beneficial fungi can have a devastating effect on soil fertility, and so many parts of the world have passed laws to curb these processes. A study ...
Agriculture
Jul 17, 2026
0
9
