Amazon Forest & Savanna Lands: A Guide to the Climates, Vegetation, Landscapes and Soils of Central Tropical South America

This book provides an overview of the land resources of the Amazon in terms of the complex of climates, landscapes, vegetation and soils found throughout this vast, often misunderstood region. It has been prepared for a broad audience of scientists, agronomists, foresters, farmers, ecologists and also administrators. The study is partly a sequel to the original Land Systems study of the region carried out by the senior author between 1976 and 1980 that was published with the title "Land in Tropical America"; however it includes a wealth of interesting information from subsequent studies conducted by the authors over the past 30 years. Apart from the additional detailed land resource studies of Amazonia summarized in the book, it provides a fresh and novel insight into the ecological complex of forest and savanna lands throughout the region. Further, it includes a gamma of technical information of importance to the study and understanding of tropical lands in general.

Thomas T. Cochrane is a tropical land resource specialist with over 50 years experience in the evaluation of Amazon lands. In 1963 he was contracted by the British Tropical Agricultural Mission to Bolivia to study some of the least understood lands of the Amazon. He was eventually awarded the Bolivian Government decoration ＂El Condor de los Andes＂ for his work. In 1976, CIAT (The International Centre for Tropical Agriculture) contracted him to study the entire savanna and forested land of the Amazon, which resulted in the publication of the book ＂Land in Tropical America＂. -His hobby as a pilot flying his light airplane facilitated his coverage of this vast region, albeit with a certain risk! Over the following years he continued his study of Amazon lands with various organizations as opportunities arose. In addition to their Amazon studies, Dr. T.T. Cochrane and his co-author Dr. T.A. Cochrane, have formulated a new equation for calculating osmotic potential which has led to the development of a unifying theory of water movement throughout the soil-plant continuum. Dr. T.T. Cochrane is currently supervising Ägrotecnologica Amazonica´s forest-savanna ecological conservation reserve in the Bolivian Amazon. Thomas A. Cochrane is a senior lecturer in the department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He has previously worked at the NSERL-USDA-ARS, the Itaipu Hydroelectric facility, and Agteca S.A. conducting research on soil and water conservation and GIS modeling. He also spent time in the Amazon region doing soil surveying and helping in the land resources studies presented in the book. Since joining Canterbury in 2005, Dr T.A. Cochrane has been teaching courses in natural resources engineering and actively involved in research projects dealing with the conservation of natural resources around the world.