Nature and Properties of Soils
Nyle C. Brady & Ray R Weil
Soils play a critical role in meeting human food needs. Their conservation and wise use are essential today and will be even more critical in the future as population pressures increase. These pressures are already forcing the use of lands for food production that good judgment says should be kept in forests and rangelands. This change in land use encourages accelerated erosion and runoff losses that reduce soil productivity and simultaneously force sedimentburdened floodwaters on downstream populations. Political leaders and development analysts alike agree that at no time in the history of humankind has the welfare of people been so dependent on the wise use and management of soils.
Effective conservation and management of soils require an understanding of these natural bodies and of the processes going on within them. These processes. which are vital to the production of plants. also influence the many other uses made of soils. The primary purpose of this text is to help the reader to gain a better understanding of the nature and properties of soils and to learn ways of making soils more useful to humankind. I hope that it will be as useful to the student preparing to work in tropical areas as in the United States or Europe.
[ The downloadable version is the 9th edition ]
Publication Details
- Published: 1974
- Publisher: Macmillan
- ISBN-10: 0023133503
- ISBN-13: 9780023133503
- Dewey Decimal: 631.4
- ECHO Library: 631.4 BRA