Fourth Annual Urban Soils Symposium and the Urban Soils Fest Weekend
The Fourth Annual Urban Soils Symposium and Urban Soils Fest Weekend will be October 11-14, 2019 in Brooklyn, NY. Registration information for the symposium and the festival are available online.
Biodiversity to BiodiverCITY
Fifty percent of the world’s population lives in cities. Even though cities make up just a small 2% of the earth’s land use, their impact is far greater than their boundaries. Nature and climate change don’t conform to these boundaries. Cities are tightly interconnected to the rest of the world, and therefore have a proportionately large influence on our resources and environment through population density, consumerism, and waste. Scientists hypothesize that cities use 75% of the resources we take from the Earth.
Much of the urban development causes soil sealing, alteration of soil properties, and fragmented landscapes, leading to a loss of connectivity between habitats. These changes have marked effects on multiple ecosystem services linked to air and water quality, biodiversity, and human well-being. Climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, heat island effect, are some of the effects and changes cities have on the global and local environment.
But if we find solutions to these problems, these problems become opportunities for cities to make a positive change in our world’s food system, environmental health, and to reconnect the urban with the non-urban.
How?
Cities have urban soils. We live with them, on them, but do we know everything about them? No. What we do know is that urban soils…are soils. Like all soils, they have a high capacity for influencing the environment because they support life through various functions, providing ecosystem services, like cleaning our air and water, and providing the nutrients and structure to support our vegetation and our food.
Biodiversity is supported by soils, and supports life. Its Earth’s dynamic balance, of which each piece is essential. Urban soils are diverse. Their potential is diverse. Herein lies the choice: stay as we are or learn from the soils and optimize their greatest potential and capacity to support life, biodiversity and optimize ecological productivity to develop sustainable cities.
What does it mean to develop sustainable cities? Within their boundaries? What is biodiversity? Do our cities have biodiversity? Is it in our goals to implement nature-based solutions and green cities in order to fulfill what we call sustainability? How important is it? When is it important? Who decides? How do we play a role; in how we value nature in the city; in how we engineer it; through what we eat, through our daily lifestyle choices?
This is the subject of our Fourth Annual Urban Soils Symposium and the Urban Soils Fest Weekend.
Join us to discuss, deliberate, and find solutions.
The International Society for Ecological Modeling Global Conference 2019
The 22nd biennial conference of The International Society for Ecological Modelling (ISEM), under the theme eco:model:spaces, will bring together scientists from all professions and applications that deal with the use of ecological models and systems ecology.
Salzburg Congress Centre, Salzburg, Austria
Click here for more information.
Date:
Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - Saturday, October 5, 2019
9th European Society for Soil Conservation (ESSC) International Congress
The European Society for Soil Conservation (ESSC) & the Agricultural University of Tirana are delighted to invite you at the 9th ESSC International Congress.
In this 9th edition of the congress, the focus will be on “Soil's Contribution to People: from Food to Life Supporting Services’”.
Second Circular, Call for papers, info on Grants for young Researchers and more info are available at: www.9ESSC.UBT.EDU.AL
Tirana, Albania
26-28 September 2019
SOILS4EU Workshops at the TERRAenVISION 2019 Conference
On 2 September 2019, as side events of the TERRAenVISION 2019 conference, SOILS4EU is organizing in the afternoon (14h30-18h00), two simultaneous workshops to discuss subjects that DG Environment considers of great importance:
- Workshop 1: Impact of soil degradation on human health
- Workshop 2: Potential of Earth Observation for improved soil monitoring
SOILS4EU has drafted two dedicated in-depth reports that will be presented and discussed during the workshops. The aim is not only to disseminate the findings but to gather expert opinions and feedback on the conclusions and recommendations of the reports. The workshops results will feed the reports and serve as deliverables of the project.
Prior to the workshop, the registered participants will receive draft copies of the report and a set of key questions to be discussed during the workshop sessions. Each workshop will be organized into a plenary presentation of the report, a working groups session for in depth discussion around a set of key questions, and a plenary session to get the feed-back of the working groups, discussion on key messages and recommendations and final conclusions. After the closure of the workshops, the participants are invited for a cocktail.
The workshops will run in parallel from 14h30 to 18h00. Experts interested to participate in a workshop are kindly invited to confirm the workshop of their choice by registering through the TERRAenVISION registration system. Participation to the Soils4EU workshops is free of charge.
Venue: University of Barcelona, St. Montalegre 6, 08001 Barcelona
For further information, contact Antionio López-Francos at lopez-francos@iamz.ciheam.org.
Wageningen Soil Conference
Wageningen University & Research is delighted to invite you to join us at the fourth edition of the Wageningen Soil Conference. As in previous editions, the aim is to discuss the importance of soils. In the 2019 edition, the focus will be on “Understanding soil functions: from ped to planet”. To do this we will adopt a new style of conference, with traditional conference talks in the mornings, followed by a range of scientific and interactive topic workshops in the afternoons.
We look forward to welcoming you to Wageningen in August 2019.
For more information see this flyer or visit their website.
Date:
Tuesday, August 27, 2019 - Friday, August 30, 2019
Conference on Living Soils and Child Health
Date: 29 July 2019
Venue: Vinoba Hall, Gandhi Bhavan, Bengaluru
Time: 10:30 AM to 1:00 PM
Speakers:
Mr. Vasudeva Sharma, Executive Director of the Child Rights Trust
Dr. S. K. Aruni, Deputy Director of the Indian Council for Historical Research
Master Nikhil Sriharsha, Student
Dr. D. J. Bagyaraj, Soil Scientist
13th International Symposium of the Russian Society of Nematologists
Karelian Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences
The Organizing Committee of the 13th International Symposium of the Russian Society of Nematologists is delighted to invite you to the symposium "Nematodes and other Ecdysozoa under changing environments", which will take place at the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Petrozavodsk, Republic of Karelia, Russia) on July 29 – August 4, 2019.
The symposium is gathered to discuss current theoretical and practical issues of nematology at plenary and thematic sessions, during poster sessions. Environments will be considered as the basis of nematodes' life and a tool for regulating population size. This event will provide nematologists with an opportunity to share their views on recent advances in nematology, present their results through oral or poster presentations. Young researchers will learn about the latest achievements in various areas of nematology, make presentations about their scientific work, discuss the results with experts in nematology, listen to lectures on theoretical nematology. Another aim of the Symposium is to strengthen the professional network of Russian and international nematologists, as well as offer a modern scientific platform to promote information exchange between the scientific and business communities, educational organizations, executive authorities in the region.
In order to popularize science, scientific achievements in the field of nematology and their practical applications will be presented in the form of Open Lectures and workshops on practical nematology for adults and children.
Click here for more information.
51st annual Organization of Nematologists of Tropical America meeting
Click here to visit the ONTA 2019 website and find out more information.
Society of Nematology Annual Meeting - 2019
The city of Raleigh and North Carolina State University invite you to attend the 58th annual meeting of the Society of Nematologists on July 7-10, 2019. Raleigh serves as the capital of North Carolina and as a pivotal hub in the Research Triangle (www.visitraleigh.com). Known as the City of Oaks, Raleigh provides a unique blend of urban offerings and excitement nestled within a park-like setting, located just a few hours drive from the beach to the east and mountains to the west. North Carolina State University (www.ncsu.edu) in Raleigh serves as the state’s flagship land-grant university and includes a long and storied history in research, extension, and education in science and agriculture. The science and practice of nematology has thrived at NC State for more than half a century, producing some of the giants in our discipline and promoting excellence in nematology to this day.
Click here to find out more.
Rhizosphere 5 International Meeting
The conference will be led by the University of Saskatchewan in collaboration with the Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS), and Tourism Saskatoon.
Click here for more information.
Date:
Sunday, July 7, 2019 - Thursday, July 11, 2019
10th International Seminar on Apterygota 2019
ISA10 will be held 17-21 June, 2019 in Paris France. Abstracts are due 5 May. Click here to learn more.
Summer Soil Institute - Soils Course
June 16-29, 2019
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
Click here to see the flyer, and click here to visit the website.
Italian Society of Soil Science School of Soil Biodiversity and Bioindication
The Italian Society of Soil Science’s 11 cycle of their School of Soil Biodiversity and Bioindication will be held 4-7 June, 2019. Participants will have the opportunity to hear lectures and participate in hands on laboratory and field activities related to soil contamination, bioremediation, and soil biodiversity.
Click here to learn more about the course and how to apply.
Wageningen Soil Biology Lab Skills Course
We would like to highlight the Wageningen Soil Biology Lab Skills Course, which will take place from the 13th-17th May 2019. This course introduces you to a range of soil quality parameters such as labile C, Microresp methodology for assessing multiple substrate induced respiration, Extracellular enzyme activity, Nematode and Enchytraied extraction and basics of identification. Earthworm sampling and identification.
Please click here to see more details of the course and contact information.
2019 European Soil Partnership Plenary Meeting
Rome, Italy.
More details to follow in early 2019
2nd International Symposium Mycorrhizal Symbiosis in South America
In its second edition, the Symposium Mycorrhizal Symbiosis in South America aims to promote the research of the symbiosis between fungi and plants with special emphasis on the advances and applications in South America. The need for this meeting arises from the South American potential in the subject, which addresses various areas of biology such as ecology, taxonomy, physiology and molecular biology, with a positive impact in industry and production at a regional level. The meeting will promote interdisciplinary actions between experts, stakeholders and producers, and it will establish and strengthen academic, scientific and technical networks, generating novel alternatives of sustainable production.
San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina
March 6-8, 2019
To find out more here. click here.
Tea Bag Index (TBI) Symposium
Two days filled with Talks, a lot of Tea-inspiration and opportunities to sit down with old and new TBI-enthusiasts to discuss decomposition and soil science.
February 20-21, 2019
To find out more and to register, click here!