“Language is like a blob of paste which can only be broken up by sentences. If you abandon sentences, it will be like falling into a quagmire and you will flounder about helplessly.”

So we need a sentence to describe pedometrics, to keep us out of the mire. Perhaps as soil scientists we shouldn’t be afraid to wallow in hydrosols and aquepts. However, my working definition of pedometrics has been something like, ‘The use of quantitative methods for the study of soil distribution and genesis and as a sustainable resource’.
For further discussion on the definition of Pedometrics, see , Issue 14, June 2003

Official Sites:

The Commission 1.5 Pedometrics of the International Union of Soil Sciences

Summary:

A brief summary of Alex McBratney's work on Pedometrics until 1996

Contributions 1997-2003 (Under Construction)

Tools used in Pedometrics:

Fuzzy Sets

Geostatistics

Textbooks on Pedometrics

Historical:

My first lecture course on Pedometrics (1986)

Proposal for IUSS Working Group Draft Handwritten Notes (1987)

Finally, a short anecdote, vaguely suggesting a more mystical definition of pedometrics. In the mid-‘eighties before the word ‘pedometrics’ became widely extant, and I was even more unbearable than I am now, I was asked, as we often are, by a visiting colleague what was my particular area of specialisation in soil science. “I’m a pedometrican”, I proudly replied. “A pedomagician?” “That’s right.” (These days I simply say I’m a soil scientist).

Newsletter:

Chair: Murray Lark

Vice-Chair: Budiman Minasny

Conferences:

Pedometrics '97, Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A.

Pedometrics '99, Sydney, Australia

Pedometrics '01, Ghent, Belgium

Pedometrics '03, Reading, U.K.

Pedometrics '05, Florida, U.S.A

Pedometrics '07, Tubingen, Germany

Global Workshop on Digital Soil Mapping, Montpellier, France, 15-17 September 2004

2^nd Global Workshop on Digital Soil Mapping, Rio de J aneiro, Brazil, 4-7 July 2006

Global Workshop on High Resolution Digital Soil Mapping, Sydney, 5-8 February 2008