Soil and Drought: Basic Processes

Author Biography

Rattan Lal, Ph.D., is Distinguished University Professor and Director of the CFAES Rattan Lal Center for Carbon Management and Sequestration, The Ohio State University, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Iceland and IARI, New Delhi. He was President of the WASWAC (1987-1990), ISTRO (1988-1991), SSSA (2006-2008), and the IUSS (2017-2018). He researches soil C sequestration, conservation agriculture, soil health, soil erosion and C dynamics, soil structure, eco-intensification, soil restoration, and soils of the tropics. He has authored 2885 journal articles, authored/edited more than 100 books, mentored 390 researchers, has h-index of 172, and total citations of 129,861. In a Stanford study (Ioannidis et al. 2019, 2020), he is ranked #111 globally among world’s top 2% of scientists and #1 among scientists in Agronomy & Agriculture. Reuter Thompson ranked him #391 among the top 1000 climatologists. He holds IICA’s Chair in Soil Science and Goodwill Ambassador in Sustainable Development. He is a member of the 2021 U.N. Food System Summit Science Committee, Action Track 3 and Coalition 4 Soil Health. He received the 2018 GCHERA World Agriculture Prize, 2018 Glinka World Soil Prize, 2019 Japan Prize, 2019 IFFCO Award, 2020 Arrell Global Food Innovation Award, the 2020 World Food Prize, and the 2021 Padma Shri Award, India.