SOIL SCIENCE IN TRANSITION: SOIL AWARENESS AND SOIL CARE RESEARCH STRATEGIES

The perceived decline of soil science in the industrialized countries needs to be remedied by greater attention (i) to fundamental aspects of soil processes and soil development in the context of global climate change and (ii) to local and regional environmental problems. Soil care is proposed as a unifying concept and challenge for geoecological sustain-ability. It is defined as the activity of selecting and implementing, locally and regionally, a system of soil and land use management suitable for maintaining and improving soil usefulness and quality for any selected purpose. In developing countries where, in addition, improvement of soil productivity will remain the major goal, more locally trained soil scientists will be needed to increase their relative proportion among the current number of some 50,000 soil scientists worldwide and to narrow the gap in research efforts.