The Soils Of Italy

The Soils of Italy is the first comprehensive book on Italian pedology in seventy years. Taking advantage of the authors’ large experience and of the most up-to-date information and technology, this book treats the main soil types of Italy, their diffusion, their functions, ecological use, and the threats to which they are subjected during centuries of intensive management. It also deals with future scenarios of the relationships between soil science and other disciplines, such as urban development, medicine, economics, sociology, and archaeology. The description of the soils is accompanied by a complete set of data, pictures and maps, including benchmark profiles. Factors of soil formation are also treated, making use of new, unpublished data and elaborations. The book also includes a history of pedological research in Italy, spanning over a century.

The book compiles the main ideas and methodologies that have been proposed and tested within these last fifteen years in the field of Digital Soil Mapping (DSM). Begining with current experiences of soil information system developments in various regions of the world, this volume presents states of the art of different topics covered by DSM: Conception and handling of soil databases, sampling methods, new soil spatial covariates, Quantitative spatial modelling, Quality assessment and representation of DSM outputs. This book provides a solid support to students, researchers and engineers interested in modernising soil survey approaches with numerical techniques. It is also of great interest for potential soil data users. * A new concept to meet the worldwide demand for spatial soil data * The first compilation of ideas and methodologies of Digital Soil Mapping * Offers a variety of specialities: soil surveying, geostatistics, data mining, fuzzy logic, remote sensing techniques, Geographical Information Science,...* Written by 82 researchers from 13 different countries

Understanding how past and current physical landscape processes, both natural and anthropogenic, affect the archaeological record has become one of the main aims of the burgeoning field of Geoarchaeology. But the ideal of effective multidisciplinary research collaboration is hard to achieve. This second volume of the 'Raganello Basin Studies' series demonstrates how intensive collaboration between earth scientists and archaeologists has resulted in a systematic approach to the description and assessment of archaeologically relevant soils and landscape processes in a typical Mediterranean landscape - the basin of the Raganello River in southern Italy. It is both a detailed report on the extensive field studies conducted by the authors in 2012-2014, and a much needed ?how to' guide to the study of landscapes and soils within the framework of landscape archaeological projects in the Mediterranean. The work described here builds on the expertise in Mediterranean soils and landscapes gained by the first author over decades of research, and avoids or explains jargon that would otherwise deter those with a purely humanities background

Robert V. Camuto sets out across modern Southern Italy in search of the "South-ness" that defined his youthful experience and views the world through wine, food, and families.

Soils are affected by human activities, such as industrial, municipal and agriculture, that often result in soil degradation and loss. In order to prevent soil degradation and to rehabilitate the potentials of degraded soils, reliable soil data are the most important prerequisites for the design of appropriate land-use systems and soil management practices as well as for a better understanding of the environment. The availability of reliable information on soil morphology and other characteristics obtained through examination and description of the soil in the field is essential, and the use of a common language is of prime importance. These guidelines, based on the latest internationally accepted systems and classifications, provide a complete procedure for soil description and for collecting field data. To help beginners, some explanatory notes are included as well as keys based on simple test and observations.--Publisher's description.