Bruno Glaser - Böcker

This user-friendly book introduces biochar to potential users in the professional sphere. It de-mystifies the scientific, engineering and managerial issues surrounding biochar for the benefit of audiences including policy makers, landowners and farmers, land use, agricultural and environmental managers and consultants, industry and lobby groups and NGOs. The book reviews state-of-the-art knowledge in an approachable way for the non-scientist, covering all aspects of biochar production, soil science, agriculture, environmental impacts, economics, law and regulation and climate change policy. Chapters provide ‘hands-on’ practical information, including how to evaluate biochar and understand what it is doing when added to the soil, how to combine biochar with other soil amendments (such as manure and composts) to achieve desired outcomes, and how to ensure safe and effective use. The authors also present research findings from the first coordinated European biochar field trial and summarize European field trial data. Explanatory boxes, infographics and concise summaries of key concepts are included throughout to make the subject more understandable and approachable.

This user-friendly book introduces biochar to potential users in the professional sphere. It de-mystifies the scientific, engineering and managerial issues surrounding biochar for the benefit of audiences including policy makers, landowners and farmers, land use, agricultural and environmental managers and consultants, industry and lobby groups and NGOs. The book reviews state-of-the-art knowledge in an approachable way for the non-scientist, covering all aspects of biochar production, soil science, agriculture, environmental impacts, economics, law and regulation and climate change policy. Chapters provide ‘hands-on’ practical information, including how to evaluate biochar and understand what it is doing when added to the soil, how to combine biochar with other soil amendments (such as manure and composts) to achieve desired outcomes, and how to ensure safe and effective use. The authors also present research findings from the first coordinated European biochar field trial and summarize European field trial data. Explanatory boxes, infographics and concise summaries of key concepts are included throughout to make the subject more understandable and approachable.

Amazonian Dark Earths are not only a testament to the vanished civilizations of the Amazon Basin, but may provide the answer to how the large, sophisticated societies were able to sustain intensive agriculture in an environment with mostly infertile soils. Locally known as Terra Preta de Indio or Indian black earth, these anomalous soils are even today fertile and highly productive. Though clearly associated with pre-European settlements questions remain whether the Dark Earths were intentionally produced or merely a by-product of habitation activities. This publication provides a comprehensive review of our current understanding of these fascinating soils: their origin, properties, and management through time. These new and multidisciplinary perspectives by leading experts on Amazonian Dark Earths may pave the way for the next revolution of soil management in the humid tropics.

The idea for the volume first came about through a conversation the editors had at the Sustainable Management of Soil Organic Matter Conference in Edinburgh in September 1999. It developed with two symposia on Amazonian dark earths that were held in 2001 in conjunction with the Conference ofLatin Americanist Geographers in Benicassim, Spain, and the Congress of the Brazi- lian Archaeological Society in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, respectively, and culmi- nated at the First International Workshop on Terra Preta Soils held in Manaus and Santarem, Brazil, in July 2002. As a comprehensive treatment of these dis- tinctive anthropogenic soils has never been published, we decided to select papers from these symposia and develop an edited volume. The result con- tains the efforts of an international group of distinguished scholars from the disciplines of anthropology, archaeology, biology, geography, and soil science. The 15 chapters of this volume provide an array of interesting and comple- mentary interpretative stances developed from a diverse body of investigative methodologies.The readerwill note that there are some inconsistencies inter- minology and differences in interpretation among the chapter presentations. However, the editors purposely allowed these to remain and retained as much as possible of the authors' own words, since we feit that it was important to maintain the flavor of the symposium atmosphere in this volume and conse- quently did not intentionally force standardization upon the authors.

The idea for the volume first came about through a conversation the editors had at the Sustainable Management of Soil Organic Matter Conference in Edinburgh in September 1999. It developed with two symposia on Amazonian dark earths that were held in 2001 in conjunction with the Conference ofLatin Americanist Geographers in Benicassim, Spain, and the Congress of the Brazi- lian Archaeological Society in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, respectively, and culmi- nated at the First International Workshop on Terra Preta Soils held in Manaus and Santarem, Brazil, in July 2002. As a comprehensive treatment of these dis- tinctive anthropogenic soils has never been published, we decided to select papers from these symposia and develop an edited volume. The result con- tains the efforts of an international group of distinguished scholars from the disciplines of anthropology, archaeology, biology, geography, and soil science. The 15 chapters of this volume provide an array of interesting and comple- mentary interpretative stances developed from a diverse body of investigative methodologies.The readerwill note that there are some inconsistencies inter- minology and differences in interpretation among the chapter presentations. However, the editors purposely allowed these to remain and retained as much as possible of the authors' own words, since we feit that it was important to maintain the flavor of the symposium atmosphere in this volume and conse- quently did not intentionally force standardization upon the authors.