Abstract

The science of pedology has historically studied how soils form in response to natural factors and processes. Today, with soils being so extensively altered by human action, pedology is adapting to the fundamental changes that are ongoing in our objects of study. These scientific adaptations are facilitated by: a quantifiable process model of soil formation, the realization that most soils are polygenetic products of changing environments, and ongoing work to integrate human influence into soil taxonomy. However, the state of long-term soil observatories that provide direct observations of human-influenced soil change is wretchedly inadequate. Because soils evolve in response to high-order interactions, they are changing in diverse, non-linear, and hard-to-predict trajectories that will always require decades to observe before they can be reliably simulated.