My experience on Pedometrics 2015
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to attend the Pedometrics 2015. It was my first time at the Pedometrics conferences and the scholarship received helps me to participate and communicate my work through a poster.
One of the most benefits, was to meet important people in my research area and keeping contact to discuss current and future ideas and studies. Furthermore, the presentations offer new information and make possible comparisons what I was thinking about development of studies and new publications.
The meeting on Monday on soil-landscape modelling, was particularly interesting to me because I could follow important discussion related to landscape and pedogenic evolution and to know new modelling techniques and software.
The statistical and geostatiscal tools, addressed mainly on Tuesday, were extensively explained and showed how they are useful, as part of important modern techniques that deal with sample collecting and how to correlate data and terrain attributes. New tools for measuring soil properties were addressed and showed how important is to have rapid and consistent data. The data obtained using field sensors can be used for digital soil mapping, making the process faster and efficient.
Relations between soil and ecosystems were addressed on Wednesday, showing mainly the importance of soil microbiology and assessment of soil health, as well the importance of proximal soil sensing as an important tool to acquire key data.
The poster sessions make possible students and professors exhibit their studies and ideas, and it was an important moment to discuss my project and to talk with relevant scientists that developed research in similar areas that I’m developing.
The last day I have my first experience on European soils, during the fieldtrip. It’s interesting to observe how the soils and crops are different from the most part of South America, leading to different kind of agricultural techniques, soil managements and new solutions for different problems. I could observe how the soil modelling can be applied to analyze and understand different characteristics of soils through the landscape.
As I was in Europe for the first time, I had a pleasure to know Cordoba and its beautiful buildings and historical attractions. I could to know also the great University of Cordoba and its structure. The dinner make me have the contact with Flamenco musicians for the first time.
It’s striking how the committee organized the meeting, due the strict control of the time of presentations and excellent meals during the breakfast, lunch, dinner and fieldtrip.
Concluding, the most important that I could bring to me were the new contacts, to organize existent ideas and create some news, knowledge about the modern tools for deal with digital soil mapping and collecting samples, to relate soils with ecosystems, to know the importance of pedogenic models on understand the soil formation and to contribute to soil mapping, and how the scientific community is conducting the Soil Science nowadays.
The Conference made me motivated to attend the next meeting, in Wageningen.
Benito Bonfatti
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
