Critical Zone 1

Artists and writers portray the disorientation of a world facing climate change. This monumental volume, drawn from a 2020 exhibition at the ZKM Center for Art and Media, portrays the disorientation of life in world facing climate change. It traces this disorientation to the disconnection between two different definitions of the land on which modernizing humans live: the sovereign nation from which they derive their rights, and another one, hidden, from which they gain their wealth—the land they live on, and the land they live from. Charting the land they will inhabit, they find not a globe, not the iconic “blue marble,” but a series of critical zones—patchy, heterogenous, discontinuous. With short pieces, longer essays, and more than 500 illustrations, the contributors explore the new landscape on which it may be possible for humans to land—what it means to be “on Earth,” whether the critical zone, the Gaia, or the terrestrial. They consider geopolitical conflicts and tools redesigned for the new “geopolitics of life forms.” The “thought exhibition” described in this book can opens a fictional space to explore the new climate regime; the rest of the story is unknown. Contributors include Dipesh Chakrabarty, Pierre Charbonnier, Emanuele Coccia, Vinciane Despret, Jerôme Gaillarde, Donna Haraway, Joseph Leo Koerner, Timothy Lenton, Richard Powers, Simon Schaffer, Isabelle Stengers, Bronislaw Szerszynski, Jan A. Zalasiewicz, Siegfried Zielinski Copublished with ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe

Amid the globalizing forces, whether economic, political, or cultural, there remain conspicuous differences and divergences that divide and antagonize scholarly communities. How should we understand and respond to those discursive gaps among different traditions and systems of knowledge production? Critical Zone is a book series that is envisaged as a forum where communities of critical scholarship can come together to share ideas and participate in the debates that preoccupy the humanities today. The series aims to improve understanding across cultures, traditions, discourses, and disciplines and to produce international critical knowledge. Critical Zone is an expression and an embodiment of timely collaboration among scholars in Hong Kong, mainland China, the United States and Europe and is conceived as an intellectual bridge between China and the rest of the world. Each volume in the series has two sections. The first section contains original articles on a set of related topics by scholars from around the world; the second section includes review essays highlighting one or two issues in regional critical scholarship and translations that reflect intellectual trends and concerns in the region, in particular in China.

This introductory book to the six volume series includes an introduction defining the critical zone for mankind that extends from tree canopy and the lower atmosphere to water table and unweathered rock. Soils play a crucial role through the functions and the services that they provide to mankind. The spatial and temporal variability of soils is represented by information systems whose importance, recent evolutions and increasingly performing applications in France and in the world must be underlined. The soil functions, discussed in this book, focus on the regulation of the water cycle, biophysicochemical cycles and the habitat role of biodiversity. The main services presented are those related to the provision of agricultural, fodder and forest products, energy, as well as materials and the role of soil as infrastructure support. They also include the different cultural dimensions of soils, their representations being often linked to myths and rites, as well as their values of environmental and archaeological records. Finally, the issue is raised of an off-ground world.

Clay and clay minerals on Earth's surface and in watershed areas.

Principles and Dynamics of the Critical Zone is an invaluable resource for undergraduate and graduate courses and an essential tool for researchers developing cutting-edge proposals. It provides a process-based description of the Critical Zone, a place that The National Research Council (2001) defines as the "heterogeneous, near surface environment in which complex interactions involving rock, soil, water, air, and living organisms regulate the natural habitat and determine the availability of life-sustaining resources." This text provides a summary of Critical Zone research and outcomes from the NSF funded Critical Zone Observatories, providing a process-based description of the Critical Zone in a wide range of environments with a specific focus on the important linkages that exist amongst the processes in each zone. This book will be useful to all scientists and students conducting research on the Critical Zone within and outside the Critical Zone Observatory Network, as well as scientists and students in the geosciences – atmosphere, geomorphology, geology and pedology. The first text to address the principles and concepts of the Critical Zone A comprehensive approach to the processes responsible for the development and structure of the Critical Zone in a number of environments An essential tool for undergraduate and graduate students, and researchers developing cutting-edge proposals

One third of the world's soils have already been degraded. The burden on the land continues to grow under the combined pressures of demography, urbanization, artificialization and mining, and there are increased demands on agricultural land: changing dietary preferences, land speculation, as well as new demands for agroenergy, fiber, green chemistry, and more. Resulting issues such as soil crusting, water and wind erosion, soil salinization and soil acidity therefore constitute a major threat. The authors of this book present the main processes and factors of soil degradation, different ways to prevent it and methods of rehabilitation. The book also deals with the origin and processes of metallic and organic soil pollution as well as methods of phytoremediation and restoration. It is one of the few books to explore the issue of soil artificialization and urban soil management and to highlight how agricultural and urban waste can be used to amend and fertilize cultivated soils.

This introductory book to the six volume series includes an introduction defining the critical zone for mankind that extends from tree canopy and the lower atmosphere to water table and unweathered rock. Soils play a crucial role through the functions and the services that they provide to mankind. The spatial and temporal variability of soils is represented by information systems whose importance, recent evolutions and increasingly performing applications in France and in the world must be underlined. The soil functions, discussed in this book, focus on the regulation of the water cycle, biophysicochemical cycles and the habitat role of biodiversity. The main services presented are those related to the provision of agricultural, fodder and forest products, energy, as well as materials and the role of soil as infrastructure support. They also include the different cultural dimensions of soils, their representations being often linked to myths and rites, as well as their values of environmental and archaeological records. Finally, the issue is raised of an off-ground world.