Scientifi c heritage of the honorary professor E.A. Dmitriev

Abstract

The article is a review of the scientific problems that the Honored Professor of the Lomonosov Moscow state university Evgeny Anatolyevich Dmitriev. The main area of his scientific interests is the genesis of soil and land cover data. Numerous works carried out under his supervision convincingly demonstrate the influence of sampling methods on the results of determining certain soil properties. As a consequence, this influence also extends to the final conclusions, which can be highly distorted if the method of obtaining them is not taken into account. In an attempt to solve the question “What classifies soil classification?”, he develops the concept of “single soil”, which can be the object of soil classifications, not being directly a soil body, but acting as a kind of standard element of sampling. Theoretical understanding of the influence of heterogeneity of soils and soil cover at all hierarchical levels on the features of its “life” is the subject of the second part of the scientific legacy of E.A. Dmitriev. He puts forward the concept of soil bodies of different dimensions, shows the influence of the dimensional characteristics of these bodies on soil regimes and, in particular, on the water regime, and discusses the need to study soil regimes at different hierarchical levels. To fix the heterogeneity of the soil and soil cover, he developed special devices, with the help of which studies were carried out on soddy-podzolic, gray forest, chestnut, and other soils.