Professor 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

• Malone, Brendan P.; McBratney, Alex B.; Minasny, Budiman; et al, 2012. A general method for downscaling earth resource information. Computers & Geosciences: 41 Pages: 119-125
• Sun, Wei; Minasny, Budiman; McBratney, Alex, 2012 Analysis and prediction of soil properties using local regression-kriging.
  Geoderma: 171 Pages: 16-23
• Sun, Wei; Whelan, Brett M.; Minasny, Budiman; et al. 2012 Evaluation of a local regression kriging approach for mapping apparent electrical conductivity of soil (ECa) at high resolution.
  Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science: 175 Issue: 2 Pages: 212-220
• Odgers, Nathan P.; McBratney, Alex. B.; Minasny, Budiman 2011
  Bottom-up digital soil mapping. I. Soil layer classes
  Geoderma: 163 Issue: 1-2 Pages: 38-44 Published: JUN 15 2011
• Odgers, Nathan P.; McBratney, Alex. B.; Minasny, Budiman 2011
  Bottom-up digital soil mapping. II. Soil series classes. Geoderma: 163 Issue: 1-2 Pages: 30-37
• Ma, RJ; McBratney, A; Whelan, B; et al. 2011 Comparing temperature correction models for soil electrical conductivity measurement. Precision Agriculture: 12 Issue: 1 Pages: 55-66
• Ma, Ruijun; McBratney, Alex; Whelan, Brett; et al 2011 Comparing temperature correction models for soil electrical conductivity measurement. Precision Agriculture: 12 Issue: 1 Pages: 55-66
• Minasny, Budiman; Vrugt, Jasper A.; McBratney, Alex B., 2011 Confronting uncertainty in model-based geostatistics using Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation. Geoderma: 163 Issue: 3-4 Pages: 150-162
• Malone, BP; McBratney, AB; Minasny, B, 2011 Empirical estimates of uncertainty for mapping continuous depth functions of soil attributes. Geoderma: 160 Issue: 3-4 Pages: 614-626
• Malone, B. P.; McBratney, A. B.; Minasny, B., 2011 Empirical estimates of uncertainty for mapping continuous depth functions of soil attributes. Geoderma: 160 Issue: 3-4 Pages: 614-626

View all research publications: http://www.researcherid.com/rid/C-2199-2011

Contact

Email:
Website: Precision Agriculture Laboratory