Relevance of Forest, Range, and Wildland Soils Research to Current and Future Land Managers in the 21st Century.

The Research and Development (R&D) branch of the USDA Forest Service works at the forefront of science to improve the health and use of the Nation's forests, grasslands, and wildlands. R&D has been part of the Forest Service mission since the agency's inception in 1905. About 500+ Forest Service R&D scientists work in a range of biological, physical, and social science fields to promote sustainable management of the Nation's diverse forests, rangeland, and wildland ecosystems. The research has a focus on providing the best science for informing policy and land management decision makers. The productivity and quality of soils are two components of a set of key indicators of the health and sustainability of forest, rangeland and wildland ecosystems. Soil scientists and the scientific outputs that they produce are an important part of the agency's capabilities to comply with requirements of environmental statutes like the National Forest Management Act, Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and Clean Air Act. In addition, soil scientists are essential parts of science and management teams addressing current issues like wildfire impacts, climate change, drought, insect outbreaks, and energy and wood demands. These issues are not going to disappear soon and in all likelihood will intensify. The education of soil scientists is extremely important to Forest Service R&D because of critical supply and demand functions. The supply function is the need to provide the next generation of soil scientists. The demand function is the science expected from these future agency soil scientists to support land management decisions and activities in the 21^st Century.