Hans Jenny (pedologist)
| Hans Jenny | |
|---|---|
| Born |
7 February 1899 Basel, Switzerland |
| Died | 9 January 1992 (aged 92) Berkeley, United States |
| Residence | U.S. |
| Nationality | Switzerland |
| Fields | Pedology (soil study) |
| Institutions | University of Missouri, University of California, Berkeley |
| Alma mater | ETH Zurich |
| Doctoral advisor | Georg Wiegner |
| Known for | Factors of soil formation |
Hans Jenny (7 February 1899 – 9 January 1992) was a soil scientist and expert on pedology (the study of soil in its natural environment), particularly the processes of soil formation. He served as 1949 President of the Soil Science Society of America.
Hans Jenny was born in Basel, Switzerland. He earned a diploma in agriculture from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in 1922, and a D. Sc. degree in 1927 for a thesis on ion exchange reactions.
Following an appointment at the University of Missouri, he joined the faculty at Berkeley in 1936. International recognition came to Jenny after the 1941 publication of Factors of Soil Formation: A System of Quantitative Pedology. His synthesis of field studies with the abstract formalism of physical chemistry set down the generic mathematical relationship that connects the observed properties of soil with the independent factors that determine the process of soil formation:
where s - soil properties; cl - regional climate; o - potential biota, r - relief; p - parent material; t - time.
Jenny left the ellipsis open to indicate that there might be other variables in the function.
In The Soil Resource, Origin and Behaviour (1980), Jenny redefined the soil forming factors as state variables and extended the effects to ecosystem properties. Parent material and relief define the initial state for soil development, regional climate, and potential biota determine the rate at which chemical and biological transformations proceed, and time determines the reach of these processes, and their expression in ecosystem, soil, vegetation, and animal component properties.
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