Brian K. Slater

The Ohio State University | OSU · School of Environment and Natural Resources

Urban greenspaces face significant anthropogenic transformation, impacting soil ecosystems, multifunctionality, and global biodiversity. With increasing population and urbanization, understanding the drivers influencing soil nematode communities in urban greenspaces is crucial for sustainable urban ecosystem management. We chose the campus of The O...

Urban greenspaces face significant anthropogenic transformation, impacting soil ecosystems, multifunctionality, and global biodiversity. With increasing population and urbanization, understanding the drivers influencing soil nematode communities in urban greenspaces is crucial for sustainable urban ecosystem management. We chose the campus of The O...

Predictive modeling with remotely sensed data requires an accurate representation of spatial variability by ground truth data. In this study, we assessed the reliability of the size and location of ground truth data in capturing the landscape spatial variability embedded in the Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer-Next Generation (AVIRIS-...

Keywords: Urban soils Soil inorganic carbon Volumetric calcimeter Gasometric method Diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy Dolomite Calcite A B S T R A C T As urbanization expands, interest in understanding soil properties and functions in urban environments has also increased. Urban soils play an important role in the global c...

Digital Soil Mapping and Assessment (DSMA) has progressed from challenging traditional soil science paradigms, through small scale prototyping, to large-scale implementation capturing quantitative measures of soil attributes and functions. This paper considers the future for DSMA in the context of a highly uncertain world where high-quality knowled...

Australia has advanced the science and application of Digital Soil Mapping (DSM). Over the past decade, DSM in Australia has evolved from being purely research focused to become 'operational', where it is embedded into many soil-agency land resource assessment programs around the country. This has resulted from a series of 'drivers', such as an inc...

The fragmented nature of arable landscapes and diverse cropping patterns often thwart the precise mapping of crop types. Recent advances in remote-sensing technologies and data mining approaches offer a viable solution to this mapping problem. We demonstrated the potential of using hyperspectral imaging and an ensemble classification approach that...

Core Ideas Historical maps were used to identify two undisturbed soil pedons in the urban area. Strong correlation was found between dolomite and the very coarse and coarse sand fractions. The Y2O3/ZrO2 ratios of soil minerals can be used to identify disturbance boundaries. Urban soils are often highly disturbed by anthropogenic activity, and cons...

Synthetic gypsum, a by-product of electricity generation, is used as a soil amendment to overcome water ponding, improve soil and water quality, improve field conditions to support farm equipment, and reduce the variability of crop yield in no-till fields by improving hydrology. Gypsum is a source of soluble calcium (Ca) that improves physical prop...

Management practices influence soil properties in both the seasonal short-term and multi-year long-term. Seasonal changes in soil compaction were assessed at the Ohio Triplett-Van Doren No-Tillage Experimental Plots, which have been operational for more than 55 years. Soil penetration resistance (PR), carbon, and nitrogen were measured from plots u...

It is increasingly appreciated that the soil resource embodies significant natural capital supporting valuable ecosystem services, yet soil natural capital and ecosystem services are threatened by land degradation at the same time as they become more central to efforts to expand food production to feed a growing population. This chapter explores th...

Inadequacy of spatial soil information is one of the limiting factors to making evidence-based decisions to improve food security and land management in the developing countries. Various digital soil mapping (DSM) techniques have been applied in many parts of the world to improve availability and usability of soil data, but less has been done in Af...

Gypsum is an excellent source of Ca and S, both of which are required for crop growth. Large amounts of by-product gypsum [Flue gas desulfurization gypsum-(FGDG)] are produced from coal combustion in the United States, but only 4% is used for agricultural purposes. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of (1) untreated, (2) short-...

Since the first documented soil survey in Tanzania by Milne (J Ecol 35:192–265, 1936), a number of other soil inventory exercises at different scales have been made. The main challenge has been the fragmented nature of the often outdated detailed soil maps and small-scale less-informative country-wide soil maps. Recent advances in information and c...

The objectives of this study were to evaluate several spectral indices for estimating soil tillage practices and determining crop residue cover using multispectral and Hyperspectral satellite images. For this purpose, Landsat satellite and EO-1 Hyperion imaging spectrometer data were acquired over agricultural fields in central Ohio, near Columbus,...

A study was conducted to examine the impact of synthetic calcium sulfite (CaSO3 · 0.5H2O) and calcium sulfate (CaSO4 · 2H2O, i.e., gypsum) from flue gas desulfurization (FGD) on soil enzyme activities, used as soil quality indicators, following land application. We used application rates of 0, 1.12 Mg ha−1 of FGD-CaSO3 (CaS-1.12T), 3.36 Mg ha−1 of...

The accuracy of soil maps could be improved by data mining existing County soil survey maps. Aggregated soil series information in the soil survey map units could be disaggregated by following a possiblistic decision tree approach. Information available in the form of “overall map unit composition in percentage” in the soil survey tabular data depi...

Machine learning can be used to derive predictive spatial models from existing soil maps, for updating soil surveys, improving efficiency of new surveys in similar landscapes, and to disaggregate map units containing multiple soil series, such as in the Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO). One challenge with using aggregated soil map units as...

Tree seedlings planted in containers along sidewalks in urban environments show restricted growth and development over time. This is the result of limited soil volume and soil compaction that hampers nutrient availability and water movement. Using tree species commonly used in urban forestry in Puerto Rico, this study was conducted to determine the...

Use of high-sulfur coal for power generation in the United States requires the removal of sulfur dioxide (SO2) produced during burning in order to meet clean air regulations. If SO2 is removed from the flue gas using a wet scrubber without forced air oxidation, much of the S product created will be sulfite (). Plants take up S in the form of sulfat...

The objective of this study was to predict and map SOC stocks at different depth intervals within the upper I-in depth using profile depth distribution functions and ordinary kriging. These approaches were tested for the state of Indiana as a case study. A total of 464 pedons representing 204 soil series was obtained from the National Soil Survey C...

It is frequently assumed that tall fescue and endophyte are uniformly distributed throughout a field, however the validity of this assumption has never been tested. The main objective of this research was to measure spatial variation in endophyte distribution in grazed pasture and whether this variation affected the grazing pattern of cattle. The e...

Abstract A raster and vector GIS was created for the North Appalachian Experimental Watershed (NAEW) from legacy (1960) 1:2,400-scale contour maps. The intent of the study was to use terrain data for the spatial modeling of soil organic carbon. It was hypothesized that DEMs derived from these data would be more accurate and therefore more useful fo...

Knowledge of the spatial variability of soil physical and chemical properties is important for precision agriculture. Fuzzy classification and geostatistical interpolation are useful tools for the simultaneous handling of continuous variation in both attributes and location. The objectives of this study were: (i) to classify data to capture optimal...

Spatial distribution information about soil organic C (SOC) pools at a proper scale is critical for developing feasible C sequestration programs. This study characterizes the spatial variation in SOC pools related to soil taxon, Major Land Resource Area (MLRA), and land use. Grouping data by the land uses associated with soil orders within each MLR...

A 1987 survey (Mancl, 1990) revealed that 27% of Ohio onsite sewage treatment systems were failing to operate effectively. Local health departments indicated that in 85% of counties these systems failed because they were installed in slowly permeable soils. In 48% of the counties, systems were failing due to installations in areas with high groundw...

Soil variability in watersheds accounts for the problem of partitioning downstream water quality data and evaluating sources of nonpoint pollution. This review of previous water quality studies was conducted to examine more closely the influence of soil properties on pollutant export. The approach used in this paper was to start with data from the...

Soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) in northwestern Ohio river water has declined over the past 20 yr in response to decreased applications of fertilizer P. Our objective was to evaluate changes in soluble P (Bray-1 P) levels in the soil over time as influenced by fertilizer P management, cultivation practice, soil properties, and landscape factors....

Soil variability in watersheds accounts for the problem of partitioning downstream water quality data and evaluating sources of non-point pollution. This review of previous water quality studies was conducted to examine more closely the influence of soil properties on pollutant export. The approach used in this paper was to start with data from the...

Soil variability in watersheds accounts for the problem of partitioning downstream water quality data and evaluating sources of nonpoint pollution. This review of previous water quality studies was conducted to examine more closely the influence of soil properties on pollutant export. The approach used in this paper was to start with data from the...

Soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) in northwestern Ohio river water has declined over the past 20 yr in response to decreased applications of fertilizer P. Our objective was to evaluate changes in soluble P (Bray-1 P) levels in the soil over time as influenced by fertilizer P management, cultivation practice, soil properties, and landscape factors....

Each of Ohio's 467 soil series was assessed to determine the depth of the soil to bedrock, the depth to a limiting soil condition, the depth to seasonal saturation, and the soil permeability. Each soil series was placed into one of three categories; suited for traditional leach fields or mound systems, suited for mound systems only, or not suited f...

soil surveys, morphological data have been routinely collected. It is common knowledge that Db generally A 937-horizon data set composed of site characteristics, morphol- increases with depth, but actual depth functions vary ogy, and laboratory characterization data for soils of Ohio was used to develop soil bulk density (Db ) prediction models. We...

Soil survey is a major component of forest land resource assessment. Conceptual and operational problems arise from employing the conventional methods of survey in forest lands, namely: implicit methods of landscape interpretation (lack of explicit procedures), transfer of data by analogy to unsampled landscapes by inferences which are scale-, and...

This paper reports calculated soil erodibility (K-m) values for the universal soil loss equation (USLE) for a range of surface soils, and for some subsoils. The calculation of erodibility values was based on laboratory measurements of water-stable sizes at the soil surface following wetting by rain and on the wet density of coarse sediment. Also in...

This paper reports calculated soil erodibility (K(m)) values for the universal soil loss equation (USLE) for a range of surface soils, and for some subsoils. The calculation of erodibility values was based on laboratory measurements of water-stable sizes at the soil surface following wetting by rain and on the wet density of coarse sediment. Also i...

Numerical classification methods may provide an alternative to manual landform delineation using aerial photographs, a subjective process that requires much knowledge of the landscape in question. Continuous classification (fuzzy set) methods and unsupervised (ISODATA) classification techniques were used to classify the landscape of a study area in...

Conventionally, in geostatistics, cokriging has been the predominant technique used for predicting soil properties from ancillary information. Cokriging is best when used on variables that are continuous. However, many ancillary variables are not. Moreover, correlations of soil properties with ancillary variables may not always be linear. Methods t...

A framework is proposed for the analysis and representation of three-dimensional soil-landscapes. An approach for linking soil-landscape and pedogenic models, involving the development of a conditional, mechanistic and stochastic representation of soil diversity, is introduced. Further sections examine the processes of appropriate temporal-spatial...

This paper provides a brief historical review of soil-geomorphological approaches to investigations of soil-landscape formation, and an outline of a methodological and conceptual appraoch for three-dimensional (3-D) modeling of the soil-landscape continuum that utilizes geographic information systems (GIS), spatial analysis and field data. Four int...

Combustion of coal for production of electricity in the United States often requires the removal of SO2 produced in the flue gas in order to meet clean air regulations. Some scrubbing technologies lead to the production of large amounts of flue gas desulfurization (FGD)-gypsum. Gypsum is a soluble source of the plant nutrients Ca and S and can also...

A comprehensive soil property database is being developed as a major component of the Ohio Agricultural Water Management Guide. The soil property database includes soil physical and chemical parameters required for the evaluation, design, construction, and operation and management of agricultural water management systems and their components for th...

Spine title: Properties of soil and overburden from Wandoan. Thesis (M. Agr. Sc.)--University of Queensland, 1987. Includes bibliographical references.