Soils and the Greenhouse Effect

The present book is the result of an international conference on "Soils and the Greenhouse Effect", 14-18 August 1989 in Wageningen, the Netherlands.

It was organized by the International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC) on behalf of the Netherlands ministry of housing, physical planning and environment (VROM) as a contribution to the IGBP-global change programme. The conference included soil scientists and researchers from many other fields.

Its aim was to identify research gaps in the field of the geographic distribution of the world soils and land cover types (natural vegetation, cropland or grazing land) and trends in land use on the one hand, and of greenhouse gas fluxes, evapotranspiration and albedo, on the other hand. The conference resulted in a number of conclusions towards further reseach on soil and land use related processes involved in the emission of greenhouse gases, and also land use policies which may contribute to reduced emissions.

These conclusions are summarized in chapter 1. The organization of the conference was made possible through funds of VROM.

Financial support for the publication of this book and the conference background paper was received from the Commission of the European Community (CEC) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Additional financial support was received from the Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

Cooperating organizations were IGBP-global change, the International Society of Soil Science (ISSS) and the Unesco Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB).