Soil Physics and Soil Hydrology

News

Announcement of Professorship W2 Soil Physics in Göttingen

At the Department of Crop Sciences of the Georg August University Göttingen the position of professor (W2) "Soil Physics" is advertised. The position will be filled as soon as possible. Applications are requested in electronic form until 14.04.2019. Further information can be found at https://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/542425.html.

Biannual Meeting 2019 in Bern

The planning for the symposia for the joint meeting of the BGS and the DBG in Bern 2019 has been completed. Overall, the K1 is responsible just for three symposia, namely "Soil Structure and Soil Functions", "Water, gas, energy and solute transport in soils and plants across scales" and "Free Topics: What's hot in soil physics?". In addition, as K1, we are involved in seven (!) other symposia, including "Rhizosphere processes - Plant-soil interactions", "Trace gas fluxes from soil", or "Soil erosion". This reflects a paradigm shift for the conference in Bern, away from a disciplinary program to problem-oriented symposia, which usually have to be handled interdisciplinary. Registration of contributions is possible until February 15, 2019, 2:00 pm via the electronic abstract management system. More about the annual conference can be found on the central website https://www.dbges.de/de/Bern2019.

AG 3-4 D Soil Modeling

For the annual meeting in Bern 2019 a session will be held by the wokrking group "3-4 D soil modeling". To this end, contributions are requested that deal with 3D soil models and methods for creating a soil model or need such models for the quantification of the soil solid phase. The AG not only addresses members of Commission I, but explicitly all DBG members who deal with 3D soil data and models. We invite all interested parties to actively participate in the AG. Contact details can be found on the DBG website under "Commission 1 - Working Groups" (https://www.dbges.de/de/kommissionen/bodenphysik-und-bodenhydrologie/arbeitsgruppen).

Call for nominations

At the end of 2019, Stephan Peth and Wolfgang Durner will hand over the chairmanship of Commission I to their successors. The aspirants are young, ambitious, idealistic, preferably females, and are on an early to mid stage in their careers. They intend to guidethe fortunes of the Commission for a total of four years. Nominations and self-nominations are welcome and can be emailed to the chair of the committee. The elections will be web-based before the annual meeting in Bern. In our opinion, it would be ideal if one person will be the deputy chairperson for two years and then take the lead for another two years thereafter. The statutes of the DBG do not necessarily foresee that, but it should be possible to find such a solution.

Portrait

The Commission I of the German Soil Science Society offers a platform

for scientists who are involved in teaching and research in soil physics and soil hydrology. The spectrum of research topics encompasses flow of water and gases in the vadose zone, transport of dissolved substances and colloids from the soil surface to the groundwater as well as thermal, mechanical and electromagnetic properties of soils. Soil water content, soil air composition, soil temperature and soil mechanical resistance are important controlling factors for several soil functions including chemical and biological soil processes.

Members of the Commission I meet regularly in order to discuss research results as well as challenges for future research in the field of soil physics and soil hydrology. Discussion topics include new insights in process understanding, modelling, and novel observation methods as well as applied research related to soil tillage, soil remediation, soil protection and soil conservation. Given the interdisciplinary aspects of applied soil science, joint meetings with other commissions are regularly organized.

Activities

2018: Commission meeting of K1 in Braunschweig (6.-7.9.18)

On the 6th and 7th of September the Commission of the K1 Soil Physics and Soil Hydrology took place at the TU Braunschweig. In a proven way, the program was composed of lectures and posters. The first day was dedicated to topics for which we were able to win renowned keynote speakers, the second day was devoted to free topics. On the evening of the first day sponsored barbeque took place. Specific topics were (I) Soil Structure and Soil Functions. Keynote by Dr. Steffen Schlüter, UFZ Leipzig, (II) Measurement and Modeling of Soil Processes. Keynote by Dr. Andrea Schnepf, FZ Jülich, (III) Physical Processes on Different Scales. Keynote by Prof. Dr. Erwin Zehe, KIT Karlsruhe, and (IV) Free Topics. Click here for the conference page (in German and English) and here for a photo of the attendees.

2018: Contributions of Soil Physics to the 21st World Congress of Soil Science: Beyond food and fuel

From 12.-17. In August, the 21st World Soil Science Congress took place in Rio de Janeiro with more than 2000 participants. The Soil Physics Commission of the IUSS was very well represented at the conference with three symposia. Two Divisional Symposia were offered: (1) Soil Structure Dynamics with 20 lectures in two sessions (Assessment and Evolution and Modeling and Fluxes) and a total of approximately 90 submissions; and (2) The overall role of soil physics in water conservation and food security about 50 submitted contributions and a lecture block. On the one hand, the number of contributions submitted shows that the soil structure is still a central topic in the soil physics community. On the other hand, soil physics can also make a contribution to using our dwindling resources (especially water) gently and to meet the challenges of increasing food demand. In an interdivisional symposium, three keynote lectures on the interactions between physical, biological and chemical processes in soils were presented. The German Soil Science Society was very well represented with contributions to micro- and macroscale processes (Rainer Horn, University of Kiel) and the spatial distribution of soil microorganisms in their habitats (Ellen Kander, University of Hohenheim), as well as at the conference as a whole. A third lecture was given by Eiko Kuramae (Netherlands Institute of Ecology) on the importance of different mechanisms of controlling the functions of the microbiome in soil. More intensive exchange, in particular between soil (micro) biology and soil physics, is certainly highly desirable for the future in order to better understand the diverse processes and interactions in soil habitats and their importance for soil functions.

2018: AG 3D / 4D Soil Model

The DBG working group 3-4D Soil Model met from 6.3.-7.3.2018 at the Institute of Soil Science and Geomorphology of the University of Tübingen; The host was Prof. Thomas Scholten. Mr. Marijn van der Meij (Wageningen, NL) gave a guest lecture on "Incorporating hydrological processes in soil and landscape evolution modeling: concepts and complications for structured soils." The 15 participants from universities and research institutions as well as state and federal institutions reported on their work and discussed intensively on both days the draft of a white paper on the use of 3D soil models on a country scale as a basis for mass balancing and for the parameterization of water and material household models and methods beyond the classical mapping. The topics included aspects of remote sensing, geophysics, data science, digital soil mapping, stochastic modeling, machine learning and their coupling. Case studies included eroded and compacted soils in agricultural landscapes from field to regional scales.

2018: Summer School for Flow and Transportation in Terrestrial Systems

This traditional training event was organized by Olaf Ippisch again this year and at the TU Clausthal from 2.-7. September 2018. Prof. Olaf Ippisch, Prof. Hans-Jörg Vogel and Dr. med. Steffen Schlüter as lecturers offered the predominantly international participants of the summer school a compact presentation of current concepts for flow and transport in the underground of terrestrial systems, always in conjunction with numerical simulation. As a novelty there was no guest lecturer this year. Instead, for the last day, the school moved to the meeting of Commission 1 (see above) in Braunschweig, where the participants met other researchers and presented their work as a poster or oral contribution.

2016: "Soil Physics and Soil Hydrology"

Joint Meeting of IUSS Comission 2.1 and DBG Commission 1 Braunschweig 1./2. September 2016

The DBG Commission I "Soil Physics and Soil Hydrology" organized from 1.-2. September 2016 its biannual meeting. The meeting will had a specific session dealing with the change of mechanical and hydraulic properties of soil by biological, chemical and physical factors. Prof. Sacha Mooney, University of Nottingham, gave a keynote on "Seeing is Believing - Multi-scale imaging of root-soil interactions". Furthermore, the meeting offers an exchange for free topics of current soil physical research, according to the motto "My current interest". In addition to the dissemination of the latest findings also "unfinished" work and questions was welcome to stimulate the scientific discussions. This helped to identify current research trends in soil physics as represented by DBG members. Details are given on the Homepage of the Meeting.

2016: Soil imaging workshop

From 4.7.2016 - 7.7.2016, a DBG workshop "Combined analysis of biochemistry and structural complexity of soil via imaging", Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung – UFZ Halle (Saale) took place. Steffen Schlüter (UFZ), Carsten W. Müller (Technical University of Munich) and Thilo Eickhorst (Uni Bremen) provided for the first time a workshop on imaging methods in soil science. The workshop was supported by the Commissions I, II and III of the German Soil Science Society. Philippe Baveye (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) and other speakers geve keynote presentations.
Further information can be found on the website of the workshop.

Last update: 19.1.2019, W. Durner

Cooperation

Links

Contact

Chair (2016-2017)

Co-Chair (2016-2017)

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Durner

Prof. Dr. Stephan Peth

TU Braunschweig
Institut für Geoökologie
Abt. Bodenkunde und Bodenphysik

Universität Kassel Ökologische Agrarwissenschaften (FB11) Fachgebiet Bodenkunde

Langer Kamp 19c
38106 Braunschweig
Germany

Tel. +49 (0)531 391 5605
Fax +49 (0)531 391 5637
w [dot] durnertu-bs [dot] de
www.soil.tu-bs.de

Nordbahnhofstr. 1a 37213 Witzenhausen
Germany

Tel. +49 (0)5542 98 1594
Fax +49 (0)5542 98 1590
pethuni-kassel [dot] de
www.uni-kassel.de/go/boku

The DBG Website

The DBG Website

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	Welcome to the Homepage of DBG-Kommission I - Soil Physics and Soil Hydrology Typical topics of interest for this commission are the movement of water and gas in the ground, the transport of dissolved and particulate matter between the soil surface and the groundwater, the exchange of energy, water and gases between soil and atmosphere, and the measurement and characterization of hydraulic, thermal, mechanical and electromagnetic properties of soils across a variety of scales. We see ourselves as "homeland" of all people within the DBG, who are interested in this topic. These pictures visualise exemplarily some topics that are investigated by soil physics and soil hydrology. Upper left: Structure formation during dehydration of shrinking soils; Upper right: Relationship between water content in soil and water suction; Lower left: Infiltration of water into soils via preferential flow paths; Lower right: Dye pattern in soil after infiltration of stained water, serving as a tracer for water movement in the soil.

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