Read more
This book represents the first comprehensive edition, in English, on the soils of Brazil, in the challenge of illustrating all the biomes of a country of truly continental dimension. In addition to presenting the first geosystemic view of Brazilian soils, in all geological, geomorphological and environmental aspects, the book also makes a key contribution to the discussion of current topics in Pedology, such as Anthrosols, Technosols, Soil Management trends and sustainability, Pedometrics and advanced techniques of digital soil mapping. The soils of Brazil were conveniently stratified into sectors and treated within the different biomes, without neglecting any area of the Brazilian territory.
Considering the aspects of the landscape of occurrence, climates, geomorphology and geology, each pedological region was abundantly documented with soil profile data and many fine original, three-dimensional illustrations and diagrams, made with care by the authors. Among the regions, the most important are the forested Amazon, the Central Plateau with Cerrados, the Caatingas of the northeastern semi-arid region, the Atlantic Forest in all known variants; in addition, the Restingas, Mangroves, Oceanic Islands, Wetlands of the Pantanal and the subtropical regions of the Pampa and Matas de Araucaria. The book is of great importance as the first published work on Brazilian soils, but it is of great interest to geologists and geomorphologists who study the tropics and subtropics, due to the novelty and scope of the work.
List of contents
Chapter 1. A Brief History of Brazilian Soil Science (Carlos E. Schaefer).- Chapter 2. The Making of Brazilian Soilscapes: A Geosystemic Vista on Neotropical Pedology (Carlos E. Schaefer).- Chapter 3. The Soil Regions: A Framework for Stratifying the Brazilian Soilscapes (Carlos E. Schaefer).- Chapter 4. Soils from Brazilian Amazonia (Carlos E. Schaefer).- Chapter 5. Soils of Cerrados, the Brazilian Savannas (Virlei Álvaro de Oliveira).- Chapter 6. Semiarid Soils of the Caatinga Biome of Northeastern Brazil (José Coelho de Araújo Filho).- Chapter 7. Soils From the Atlantic Forest (Ademir Fontana).- Chapter 8. Soils of the Coastal Tablelands Under Atlantic Forest (Marcelo Metri Corrêa).- Chapter 9. Soils of Pantanal: The Largest Continental Wetland (Eduardo G. Couto). Chapter 10. Soils of the Southern Araucarias High Lands (Ricardo Simão Diniz Dalmolin).
About the author
Prof. Carlos Ernesto Schaefer (BSc Agronomy, PhD Soil Science Reading Univ.- UK) is professor of Soil Science at the Federal University of Viçosa from 1994 until the present days. He has conducted soil genesis, ecological and geomorphological studies in many parts of the world, including Africa, Australia, South America and Antarctica, and is one of the leading soil scientists in Brazil, having published more than 370 papers, and supervised more than a hundred pos-grad students. Carlos lives in Minas Gerais, Brazil. He enjoys gardening, poetry, biking, Brazilian music and traveling.
