Soil Science - Meeting Societal Needs and Challenges: The United States Perspective.

Soil is the foundation of all terrestrial ecosystems. Ecosystem services provided by soil promote human health and nutrition, mitigate climate change, protect the environment, and ensure sustainable food and bioenergy production.  Soil Science Society of America’s Grand Challenges for the coming decades are: 1)Food and Energy Security; 2) Climate Change; 3)Waste Treatment and Water Quality; 4) Human and Ecosystem Health. Soil science is intrinsically an interdisciplinary science that integrates physics, chemistry, biology, and other fields.  New areas of collaboration need to be more aggressively pursued to fit the challenges facing society.  In addition students need to be trained work across the soil science disciplines and with other disciplines; understand the societal relevance of their research; and be able to communicate with non-scientists