Examination of seminal contributions made by soil physics pioneers
such as Livingston, Buckingham, Haines, Gardner, Richards, and Kirkham
reveal a common thread manifested in extremely broad scientific relevance
well beyond the boundaries of "soil physics". The establishment
of discipline boundaries in the form of specialized jargon, isolation
and lack of frequent interactions with scientists from other fields
seems to exclude contributions essential to a discipline's own evolution.
An important objective of the Kirkham conference is to serve as a
platform for expanding and blurring disciplinary boundaries of traditional
soil physics by seeking unhindered exchange of ideas (no conference
proceedings), and by in-depth exploration of methods developed and
tested in other disciplines addressing a wide range of processes taking
place in soils and other porous media.
We recognize the synergistic potential of interactions and discussions
among active researchers from diverse scientific fields that more
than internal discussion are likely to create new opportunities and
enhance relevance of participating disciplines and soil physics. The
complexity of the living and heterogeneous system we call soil presents
endless challenges to soil physics as well as serving as a source
of inspiration. The heterogeneous system with its complex biological
component and nonlinear physics that make problem solving very difficult,
is the same system that offers endless opportunities for new discoveries.
New and exciting new areas of research tend to lie either at interfaces
among disciplines where large knowledge gaps exist (e.g., scale and
scaling issues, pore scale characterization and modeling; integration
of physical and biological processes, complex-nonlinear-unstable natural
phenomena), or are becoming feasible with rapid technological advancements
(e.g., noninvasive measurement techniques, advances in computational
method).
