Session Announcement: Evolution and properties of paddy and wetland soils (S1.6)
Convenor: Ingrid Kögel-Knabner
Technische Universität München, Germany

Co-Convenor: Karsten Kalbitz
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Wetland soils occur extensively throughout the world, making up about 10 % of the worlds land mass. Regardless of their geographic location, these soils show many common properties, as their development is strongly influenced by temporary or permanent water saturation. Redox potential oscillations have strong effects on long-term biogeochemical processes in these soils. They lead to a translocation of iron in various directions, and particularly change the crystallinity of iron oxides. Interactions between redox potential, pH, solubility of organic matter and its biodegradation and microbial communities play a decisive role for the biogeochemistry of wetland soils. Paddy soils make up the largest anthropogenic wetlands on earth. The formation of these Anthrosols is induced by tilling the wet soil (puddling), and the flooding and drainage regime associated with specific redoximorphic features. Paddy soils might thus be an ideal model system for redox-driven changes in soil development.

The session convenors invite contributions to all aspects of mineral wetland and paddy soils, specifically those improving the quantitative and mechanistic understanding of the coupling of pedogenetic processes such as organic matter, N, and mineral transformations and fluxes and how they are regulated by redox potential, degree of soil development and microbial community structure and function.

If you are a researcher focusing on issues such as the ones described above you may submit an abstract to the session via: http://www.eurosoil2012.eu.

The abstract deadline is 10 October 2011.