In memoriam of Denis Alexandrovich Gavrilov, a friend and a colleague

The article describes research and teaching activity of Denis Alexandrovich Gavrilov, Candidate of Biological Sciences, senior researcher with Soil Genesis Laboratory of the Institute of Soil Science and Agrochemistry of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who died suddenly died young on August 26, 2021. He was also and enthusiastic and a hardworking publishing editor of the research journal Soils and Environment. The article briefly reviews of D.A. Gavrilov’s major publications presenting the results of his soil and combined soil and archeology studies, which he conducted both individually or in collaboration with other scientists from research and education institutions in Russia and Kazakhstan.

International conference «Soil as interlink for functioning of natural and anthropogenically transformed ecosystems» devoted to the 90th anniversary of the department of pedology and land resources estimation, Irkutsk State University and year of Baikal

From August 23 to August 29, 2021, Irkutsk hosted the Vth International Scientific and Practical Conference "Soil as interlink for functioning of natural and anthropogenically transformed ecosystems" (hereinafter – the conference) dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the Department of Soil Science and Land Resources Assessment of the Irkutsk State University (ISU) and the Year of Baikal. The total number of participants of the conference was 130 from 27 regions of Russia and 6 other countries (the Republic of Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Lebanon and Lithuania). The article presents a brief review of plenary and sectional reports on the following research topics: 1) theoretical soil science: genesis, evolution, classification problems; 2). multidisciplinary approaches of soil science related to the use of soil science methods in other research areas and scientific and industrial areas; 3) Soil resources and land assessment (fertility, degradation, land reclamation, qualitative and economic assessment, ecology and land protection). A total of 43 presentations were given at the conference: 8 plenary and 35 sectional. The interested reader will find a detailed description of the reports presented in this review, as well as other and other conference materials in the collection "Soil as interlink for functioning of natural and anthropogenically transformed ecosystems" (2021). A brief description of two excursions is given: (1) one excursion to the beautiful scenery at the shore of the Lake Baikal, held on August 23, 2021; (2) and another excursion at the Bratsk Reservoir on August 26-29, 2021. The purpose of the excursions wass to get acquainted with the nature and historical and cultural heritage of the Irkutsk region, Lake Baikal, as well as with soils, soil-forming rocks and natural features of the Southern Angara region. During the excursion tour, landscapes, rock outcrops and soil sections were presented: soils on a bumpy-depression relief; Paleolithic site of ancient man "Malta" with sections near the geoarchaeological objects "Malta-Bridge 3"; alluvial gray-humus soil in the floodplain of the Belaya River; exposure of Lower Cambrian rocks near the village Novomaltinsk; Cheremkhovsky coal mine; dispersed-carbonate gypseous chernozem near the Unga River; Novonukutsky gypsum mine; gray metamorphic soil and micellar-segregational chernozem on the bank of the Bratsk reservoir near the village Balagansk. At the end of the tour, the conference participants held a roundtable discussion about the problems of genesis and classification of the soils of the south of the Near-Angara region. The classification position of all the presented soils was justified within the framework of two classification systems: Classification of soils of Russia (2004) and Classification and diagnostics of soils of the USSR (1977). For scientific and informational support of the excursion, the guide "Southern Pre-Angara region: features of soil formation on rocks of different ages" (2021) was prepared and published. The conference aroused great interest among a wide range of specialists in the field of soil science, agrochemistry and ecology, land resource assessment, landscape studies, etc. The organization of such events promotes exchange of experience and strengthens the cooperation between researchers from leading universities and research centers, advancing the effective development of soil science, research methodology and practice, generalizing the information about soil as a link between the functioning of natural and anthropogenically transformed ecosystems.

The soil science and archaeo-geophysics alliance (SAGA): Going beyond prospection

Archaeological sites can be discovered and recorded in a high-resolution and non-invasivemanner using geophysical methods. These measure the spatial variation of a range ofphysical properties of the soil which may be representative proxies of the subsurfacearchaeology. Less-invasive and cost-effective field procedures have become top-priority tomitigate the destructive effects on our cultural heritage from intensified land use, climatechange and the current conflict panorama. At a time when many organisations are investing in advanced geophysical equipment, amajor problem is that our ability to fully interpret the information available from geophysical datasets is still very limited. This deficiency prevents geophysical survey moving beyond basic prospection and becoming a significant tool for answering nuanced questions about archaeology and their host landscapes. This limitation arises from an incomplete understanding of the relationship between soil properties and geophysical measurements. Bridging this gap requires multi-disciplinary teams, testing novel methods, plus scholarly discussion to collate the outcomes of projects on this topic. Overcoming these challenges is a prerequisite for maximising the costeffectiveness of geophysical methods, realising the expected benefits of technological investment and allowing broader utility of geophysical methods in the cultural heritage sector. SAGA will build an international network of geophysicists, archaeologists, soil scientists and other experts to develop our capability to interpret geophysical data and promote research collaborations. Our vision is that after four years, SAGA will have created an environment within which emerging field procedures, enhanced data interpretation and a broader understanding of integrated geophysical methods can flourish.

MATHEMATICAL MODELING IN SOIL BIOKINETICS

This work is a report written at the suggestion of Ph.d. N. S. Panikov in 1985 when the author was a 2nd-year student of the Faculty of Soil Science of the M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. The report provides an example of a mathematical model of soil biokinetics and discusses numerical methods for solving its constituent equations. For the steady state, some useful computer programs are given, and for the non steady state, references to programs published in the literature are given.

INVERSE PROBLEMS OF SOIL BIOKINETICS

This work represents the materials of the report prepared at the suggestion of N. S. Panikov in 19851986, when the author was a third-year student at the Faculty of Soil Science, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. The report contains definitions of direct and inverse problems. A classification of inverse problems and several examples of such problems encountered in soil science and biological kinetics are given. The question of the ill-posed inverse problems is touched, and the main methods of their solution are briefly listed. The problem of identifying a gas source in a soil column by the layer-by-layer balance method (based on measurements of the dynamics of the concentration field) is considered in detail. This task is shown as a computer program, and for others, useful links to programs published in the literature are given.

Influence of the agro zerebra growth regulator on yield and quality of spring barley grain

The results of experiments on studying the effect of the growth regulator Zerebra Agro on the grain yield of spring barley, the chemical composition of plants, the quality of the grain and the amino acid composition of the protein when cultivated according to different predecessors on meadow-chernozem soil in the conditions of the Omsk region are presented. Field studies were carried out in 2014-2016. on the fields of the educational and experimental farm of the Omsk State Agrarian University, and laboratory at the Department of Agrochemistry and Soil Science of Omsk State Agrarian University. Vvariety of spring barley – Gift of Siberia. Predecessors – steam and wheat, agricultural technics – common for the zone The use of the growth regulator Zerebra Agro at a dose of 150 ml/ha made it possible to form an increase in the yield of barley grain when cultivating barley after wheat in steam – 0,27 t/ha and 0,31 t/ha when cultivated with the second crop after steam (in the control variant, the yield was for a pair of 2.82 t/ha, for wheat 1.72 t/ha). The applied growth regulator had a positive effect on the grain quality of spring barley.

Remote Sensing Data Classification Technique: A Review

Remote sensing is the prominent technology to study the ecology of the earth. Classification is a commonly used technique for quantitative analysis of remote sensing image data. It is based on the concept of segmentation of spectral regions into regions that can be associated with a soil cover class of interest for a particular application. As an advanced remote sensing tool, Hyperspectral remote sensing technology has been studied in many applications such as geology, topography, biology, soil science, hydrology, plants and ecosystems, atmospheric science. In this paper, Supervised Decision tree; Minimum distance; Maximum likelihood classification; Parallelepiped; K-nearest neighbor; and Unsupervised K-mean; & ISODATA algorithm are reviewed. This review is helpful to the researchers who are studying this emerging field i.e. HRS.