Preface

This publication contains the proceedings of SuperSoil 2004, the 3^rd Australian and New Zealand Soil Science Societies joint conference, held in Sydney, Australia from 5-9 December 2005. More than 350 delegates from several countries including Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Canada, Germany, India, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, U.K. and U.S.A attended the conference.

The theme, “SuperSoil”, was chosen to highlight the positive aspects of soil research and the vital role that soil plays in our daily lives. These proceedings will provide influential perspectives on a range of topics from challenges and opportunities in soil science, to the impact and current state of soil science in Australia and New Zealand, and also explore soil in relation to society.

I gratefully acknowledge the Editorial Board members (Stephen Cattle, Damien Field, Geoff Humphreys, Roy Lawrie, Alex McBratney, Phil Mulvey, Brian Murphy, Peter Stephens, Arvind Surpaneni and Willem Vervoort) for their masterful handling of the reviewing process in the given time, and would also like to thank all the reviewers for their expert critiques.

I wish to acknowledge the assistance of Prashant Srivastava and my other postgraduate students, Heidi Flynn and Sue Wilkes from ICMS, Claire Braund and Roger Johnson from The Regional Institute and Graeme Tupper, in various aspects of the conference proceedings.

Balwant Singh
Chair, Editorial Committee
SuperSoil 2004
The University of Sydney