Proceedings of the National Workshop on Red and Lateritic Soils held at NBSS & LUP, Regional Centre, Bangalore, in November 1990.

Residual soils are found in many parts of the world. Like other soils, they are used extensively in construction, either to build upon, or as construction material. They are formed when the rate of rock weathering is more rapid than transportation of the weathered particles by e.g., water, gravity and wind, which results in a large share of the soi

This book provides an overview of the diversified soil regimes in India. In addition to the historical advances in soil research and its limitations, it describes the monitoring of various soil conditions and soil uses to improve productivity. Discussing topics such as climate, geology and geomorphology, major soil types and their classification, soil mineralogy and clays, soil micromorphology, soil biogeochemistry, benchmark soils, land evaluation and land use planning, soil health and fertility and soil resilience, the book highlights the multiple uses of soils in industry, human health care, mitigation of challenges due to climate change and construction. It also presents measures for a brighter future of soil science in India, such as imposing organic farming principles toward sustainable agriculture in the context of the second green revolution besides alleviating the poverty and providing the employment opportunities among the farming communities in India.

The red soils of China are typical in their chemical, physical and mineralogical characteristics of red soils in other tropical and sub-tropical areas of the world, particularly in South America, Africa and south-east Asia. For the most part, these soils are highly weathered and inherently infertile. They are acidic, nutrient deficient, poor in organic matter and have a low water-holding and supplying capacity. They cannot sustain arable cropping systems without the most careful management and are highly susceptible to soil erosion, particularly on sloping land. It is the purpose of this book to present recent research showing how the problems associated with using the red soils in China for sustainable agricultural production can be overcome, using a variety of traditional and novel approaches. In principle, these approaches should be useful in other tropical and sub-tropical countries faced with the problem of making the best use of their fragile red soil resources. The term "in principle" is used deliberately because, of course, the different red soil countries invariably operate within dissimilar socio-economic frameworks. At the present time, China may be considered to be in the process of an "industrial revolution", rather like that that took place in Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.