Paulo Pereira

SSS Soil System Sciences

The 2015 Division Outstanding Young Scientist Award is awarded to Paulo Pereira for his contribution to understand the role of ash in fire-affected soils.

Paulo Pereira is an active young scientist, full professor and head of the Environmental Management Centre at the Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius, Lithuania. This award recognises his contribution to characterising the chemistry of soils affected by forest fires on Mediterranean and temperate climates, and the role ash plays in the recovery of the soil properties after wildfires and prescribed fires.

Pereira conducted his PhD at Barcelona University, where he researched the spatial variability of soil properties and how fire affected them. As a post-doctoral research he studied the effects of fire on soil and vegetation in temperate climates. He maintains a close collaboration with research centres in the Mediterranean and the US. He is also very active as a meeting organiser and session convener at the EGU General Assembly and other conferences, such as the very successful 4th International Meeting of Fire Effects on Soil Properties held in Vilnius, Lithuania in July 2013. Pereira deserves special praise for the meetings and workshops he has organised because they attracted a wide variety of scientists from countries that have been underrepresented in the soil and Earth sciences.

Pereira is also the editor-in-chief of the journal Baltic Environment, a member of the editorial board of the journals Flamma, Geoderma, Journal Visnyk, Geology, Revista de Climatologia, and is a topical editor of the EGU Solid Earth journal. His scientific publications are numerous and show the advance of the soil sciences in the past decade. He is a worthy recipient of the EGU Soil System Sciences Division Outstanding Young Scientists Award.