Anna Paltseva’s Urban Soils Guide: A step-by-step field and lab manual for students and newer gardeners

In urban environments, it’s easy to overlook the vital resource hidden beneath the concrete and skyscrapers: soil. Yet this fundamental element is essential to our ecosystem, supporting both food production and infrastructure engineering.

It’s important to understand what’s under our feet because soil is vital for life; everything starts and ends with soil as part of a larger biocycle. We often underestimate the value simply because we don’t always see it." -Anna Paltseva, clinical assistant professor in Purdue University’s departments of agronomy and horticulture and landscape architecture

Paltseva’s journey to creating the Urban Soils Guide began in 2015 while teaching soil classes at both Brooklyn Botanic Garden and New York Botanical Garden. She faced a significant challenge: her students at the botanical gardens lacked access to college-level soil labs and equipment. To address this disparity, Paltseva developed and refined a curriculum over multiple iterations of six-week courses, integrating standard soil science textbooks, presentation slides and hands-on workshops.

This experience sparked an idea: what if she could compile all her exercises and activities into a single user-friendly manual?

“I had to gather information from multiple sources for my courses on physical and chemical properties of soil. Eventually, I started putting it all together and decided it would be a great opportunity to create a manual, as there’s nothing like it on the market for urban soils,” explained Paltseva. “Additionally, fellow junior instructors were asking me how to teach certain topics. It came to my attention that there was a significant need for resources for young educators who may have no experience teaching soils or may not have access to prepared materials or equipped labs.”

Drawing on her extensive research in urban soil contamination, remediation, and urban agriculture, Paltseva’s goal was to create a colorful manual specifically designed for urban environments, enhancing educators’ curricula and bridging the resource gap for students in these settings.

This guide serves as both an introduction to soil science for students in environmental and scientific fields and a practical source for newer gardeners, as well as anyone interested in learning how to test and manage their own soil. I’m trying to empower people to test, diagnose and treat their soils using the knowledge and results from my manual, while also recognizing when sending soil samples to a lab may be beneficial for more detailed analysis." -Paltseva

Paltseva worked on-and-off for eight years, incorporating peer reviews from her students to identify areas of improvement. She also sought feedback from senior colleagues, including professors, scientists and green industry professionals, as well as international faculty. This collaborative approach allowed her to refine the guide and create a resource that’s accessible to readers with different levels of knowledge.
 
Now available through Springer, the Urban Soils Guide offers a variety of interactive activities covering essential topics such as soil formation, soil profiles, color and smell variations, texture and structure, pore space, water retention and permeability and how water percolates through soils. Users can also explore building an urban erosion model, as well as understanding soil pH and salinity, cation exchange, carbonate content, contamination risks and mitigation strategies, plant health and nutrient availability, quantifying organic matter, organisms living in the soil using the USDA's web soil survey.
 
For homeowners and entry-level gardeners, Paltseva hopes her guide will provide a more accessible way to understand and manage their soil, as sending samples to a lab can be costly – especially for larger properties that require regular sampling. "It’s about empowering individuals to take control of their soil health with practical, affordable methods," she emphasizes.

Looking ahead, Paltseva plans to incorporate the Urban Soils Guide into her future soil science courses. She also believes it can be a beneficial tool for horticulture and landscape architecture classes. The guide has already been successfully implemented in soil science labs at two colleges and different workshops in the U.S. and abroad.

The guide includes fun activities that are easy to do and don’t require much time. I hope many can enjoy it, even if it doesn’t directly align with their field." -Paltseva

The Urban Soils Guide can be found at major retailers. Additionally, students can download the book through Purdue University Libraries.