Dr Alex McBratney

Summary

I work passionately on the sustainable use and management of the soil system. I am trying to unravel the causes of soil change in space and time and I am intrigued by questions such as: what makes soil tick, and how, where and when does it grow? I seek to develop answers to such questions through the combination of observation and quantitative theory. The understanding that provides answers to such questions helps us to create sustainable ecosystems and provide food, water and energy for humanity more securely.

Research interests

I lead one of the strongest university-based research groups on soil resource assessment internationally, working on the basic theoretical, methodological and applied aspects. Methodologically, I have developed new approaches for numerical soil classification and mapping of soil classes, particularly using the theory of fuzzy sets. The group has also been instrumental in developing methods of spatial analysis for describing and predicting field soil attributes based on goestatistics and generalised linear and non-linear models.

Most recently, we have developed new methods of spatial sampling including spatially-constrained Latin hypercube sampling and random toposequences; and new models for soil inference using pedotransfer functions and infrared spectroscopy. These methods have been eagerly adopted by research groups and practitioners worldwide. These developments have been applied in two major areas; namely, precision agriculture and digital soil assessment.

Applications in precision agriculture have focused on developing systems for on-farm implementation by designing new methods of experimentation and proximal soil sensing. These have been adopted by several hundred farmers across Australia. I pioneered in the development and formalised the concept of digital soil mapping. This has become the fastest growing area of research into providing quantitative spatial soil information. Digital soil assessment applications spans scales from catchments to the globe. Our methodology, which includes novel sampling, measurement, spatial and temporal prediction and modelling techniques, is the basis for a truly international global digital soil map proposal (www.globalsoilmap.net) which is going to be funded by the Gates Foundation as well as for collaborative work with state and federal agencies in Australia. All the theoretical and applied work so far developed can now be brought to bear to powerfully tackle the challenging problem at hand.

Background

Alex McBratney holds BSc, PhD and DSc degrees in soil science from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. After completing his PhD work at Rothamsted Experimental Station in the UK, Alex spent seven years with CSIRO Division of Soils in Brisbane.

Alex joined the University of Sydney in 1989. He is currently Pro-Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Soil Science and Director of the Australian Centre for Precision Agriculture. He is joint Editor-in-Chief of the global soil science journal, Geoderma. He is heavily involved with the activities of the International Union of Soil Sciences and the global digital soil map project.

Alex is a very experienced research supervisor who has successfully supervised 16 PhD students. He has published some 160 refereed scientific papers with an ‘h’ index of 31. He holds Discovery and Linkage grants from the Australian Research Council and several from the rural research and development corporations, most notably the Grains Research and Development Corporation.

Recent publications

• B. Minasny & A.B. McBratney, 2007 Incorporating taxonomic distance into spatial prediction and digital mapping of soil classes. Geoderma GEODER3569.
• S. Salvador-Blanes, B. Minasny, A.B. McBratney, 2007 Modelling long term in-situ soil profile evolution - application to the genesis of soil profiles containing stone layers. European Journal of Soil Science.
• F. Carré, A.B. McBratney T. Mayr & L. Montanarella, 2007 Digital soil assessments: beyond DSM. Geoderma 142, 69-79.
• J.A. Taylor, A.B. McBratney, and B.M. Whelan 2007 Establishing management classes for boradacre agricultural production. Agronomy Journal 99, 1366-1376.
• Nathan P. Odgers, Alex. B. McBratney and Budiman Minasny (2006). Generation of kth-order random toposequences. Computers & Geosciences
• B. Minasny, A.E. Hartemink & A.B. McBratney, 2007 Soil science and the h index. Scientometrics
• G. Tranter, G., B. Minasny, A,B. McBratney, B.W. Murphy, N.J. McKenzie, M. Grundy, D. Brough, 2007. Building and testing conceptual and empirical models for predicting soil bulk density. Soil Use and Management.
• A.B. McBratney & B. Minasny, 2007 On measuring pedodiversity. Geoderma 141, 149-154.
• F. Carré, A.B. McBratney & B. Minasny 2007 Estimation and potential improvement of the quality of legacy soil samples for digital soil mapping. Geoderma 141, 1-14.
• Minasny, B, McBratney, A.B., 2007. Estimating the water retention shape parameter from sand and clay content. Soil Science Society of America Journal 71, 53-55.

Contact

Email:
Website: www.usyd.edu.au/su/agric/acpa/people/alex/AlexMcB.htm