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12 November 2018 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Stephen Collett
Inaugural lecture focuses on aspects of soil classification
Prof Cornie Van Huyssteen delivered his inaugural lecture on the topic: ‘The world in a grain of sand’, at the ninth inaugural lecture at the UFS this year.

Humans classify their environment to create order, make it more understandable, aid recollection and to communicate. As important it is for humans to classify their environments, so it is to classify soil, said Prof Cornie van Huyssteen.

Prof Van Huyssteen has studied and recorded data on soil worldwide to find the most appropriate use of land, in among others, the agriculture and mining sector and for urban development. 

It is all about soil

He was vice-chair of the International Union of Soil Sciences working group for the World Reference Base, and president of the Soil Science Society of South Africa. From 1991 to 1999 he worked at the Institute for Soil, Climate and Water of the Agricultural Research Council, where he aided in the land type survey and spatial analysis of soil data.

At his recent inauguration to full professor Prof Van Huyssteen delivered the ninth inaugural lecture at the University of the Free State’s Bloemfontein Campus for 2018, talking about a matter close to his heart, soil. He titled the lecture: ‘The world in a grain of sand’. 

Relevant to irrigation scheduling

A professor in the UFS Department of Soil, Crop and Climate Sciences, Prof Van Huyssteen’s research focuses on the relationship between soil morphology and soil hydrology. It can mostly be applied to hydropedology, wetland delineation, urban development, mining EIAs, irrigation scheduling and soil classification.

Prof Van Huyssteen joined the UFS in 2000, and in 2004, he completed his PhD in Soil Science. He is also author or co-author of 25 reviewed papers.

News Archive

Dare we hope?
2014-07-01

 
Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela has done it again. She has succeeded in writing yet another book that critics herald as “lucid and compelling”, “of striking moral intelligence” and “as fresh as ever.” Her book, Dare we Hope? Facing our Past to find a New Future, rekindles our hope as South Africans and will be released on 7 July 2014.

In this book, Prof Gobodo-Madikizela explores what she calls the “unfinished business,” Afrikaner rage, why apologies are not enough, and the crisis of moral leadership in politics. Yet, in the face of all this, she shows the way to healing a wounded South African nation.

Prof Gobodo-Madikizela is a Senior Research Professor in Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation Studies at the UFS. Her research has made huge inroads into the reparative elements of victims-perpetrator dialogue in the aftermath of mass trauma and violence. She has served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and spent an extended period at Harvard University.

Her latest book follows on her hugely-successful title, A Human Being Died that Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness. For that book, she won the Alan Paton Award in South Africa, and the prestigious Christopher Award in the United States.


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