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North Dakota Water Resources Research Institute
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Soil and Water: the Convergence Professor Jimmie Richardson to Present 2001 Faculty Lectureship Jimmie Richardson, professor of soil science and adjunct professor of geology, has been awarded the 43rd Faculty Lectureship. Richardson will present his talk, "Soil and Water: the Convergence," at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 3, in the Memorial Union Century Theater. A reception in his honor will be held in the Butte Lounge following the lecture. The lecture and reception are free and open to the public. Professor Richardson is also Chair of the ND WRRI Technical
Advisory Committee at NDSU. An
internationally recognized soil scientist and geomorphologist, Richardson has
devoted more than 22 years to studying wetland soils, water movement in
landscapes and the dynamics of salinization. His research led to what has been
called "the most significant advance in soil science" in decades. Richardson
and his graduate students developed the notion that water drives the development
of soil such that the dominant hydrology of nearly any point on a landscape can
be determined by carefully observing and measuring its soil characteristics.
Prediction of long-term hydrology previously was an expensive and problematic
undertaking, and most "wetland hydrology" considered only surface
water. His methods now have been adopted around the world and set the standard
in the United States for determining hydric soils and delineating wetlands. Philip
J. Schoeneberger, research soil scientist with the Natural Resources
Conservation Service, Lincoln, Neb., supported Richardson's nomination. "He
has been a lead player from the beginning in the most significant advance in
soil science in the last 25 years: understanding and explicitly demonstrating
how hydrology affects soils and how soil morphology can be used to interpret
water movement through soils and landscapes," Schoeneberger wrote.
"This topic underpins and explains major aspects of soil genesis, soil
geography, water quality, contaminant movement, ecological patterns and function
and land management issues." David
Hammer, professor and chair of the School of Natural Resources, Department of
Soil and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia, wrote,
"Jimmie Richardson's work with his students in the prairie pothole
landscape of the Dakotas has created a new paradigm in soil science. Dr.
Richardson has taken the classic "factors of soil formation," and
placed them into a process-focused context. It is the focus upon process, at a
landscape scale, that will allow our society to begin to resolve issues of
sustainable agriculture and environmental health." Richardson
has been the major adviser to 19 master's students and eight doctoral candidates
in soil science, and has served on 73 additional graduate committees. Holly
Swanson, one of Richardson's advisees and a senior in soil science from Darwin,
Minn., says he is a unique instructor. "He really relates the material to
students and almost makes you understand it just by the way he teaches,"
she said. "He's always really
motivated in class, walking around and getting you heavily involved in the
material. You almost feel like you¢re engrossed in it with him because he's so
excited and passionate. Soil science is what he really loves, and he vividly
displays that in the classroom and his outside work." Richardson
has given dozens of public presentations on wetlands, rotational grazing, range
plant development, biodiversity and soil development to groups ranging from the
American Institute of Hyrdology to the Minnesota Soils and Water Conservation
Districts to grade school students in the Fargo-Moorhead area. He has
been a science adviser to the National Technical Committee for Hydric Soils
since 1992. He is also a member of the International Commission for Soil
Characterization and Classification, the American Society of Agronomy, the
American Society of Ground Water Scientists and Engineers, the Society of
Wetland Scientists, the Soil Science Society of America, the Canadian Soil
Science Society, the Manitoba Soil Science Society, the National Water Well
Association and the North Dakota Professional Soil Classifiers. Richardson
is a contributing author and co-editor of "Wetland Soils - Genesis,
Hydrology, Landscapes and Classification," published in September 2000. The
book, which focuses on the soil morphology of wet soils that cover most wetlands
from the subtropics northward, is the first devoted solely to hydric soils and
their landscapes. He has published 86 refereed research articles and 72 other
major reports, and has served as associate editor of Wetlands: Journal of the
Society of Wetland Scientists, and as an anonymous reviewer for several other
professional journals. Richardson
received his bachelor's degree in geology at the University of Idaho, his master's
in geology at the University of Oklahoma and his doctorate in soil genesis and
morphology at Iowa State University. He joined the NDSU faculty in 1978. In 1991
he was named the NDSU College of Agriculture Researcher of the Year and he has
been nominated to become a fellow of the Soil Science Society of America. -from It’s Happening at State, 14
February 2001 |
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