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Abstract Various methods can be used for soil acidification monitoring, which can be useful towards remediation or preventing environmental degradation. It has been demonstrated that acidification can be made evident over the span of a few years, with proper monitoring. However, a reliance on pH as a main indicator can lead to detection inadequacies, especially where soils are relatively well buffered against acidity and acid deposition is negligible. A technique employing acid-neutralising capacity (ANC) derivation was applied to cultivated and uncultivated Alluvial Meadow soils to find out whether ANC data could prove effective in determining the occurrence and degree of acidification. Sampling and lab work were carried out between 2009 and 2010 on 33 sites under various land uses. Unlike pH, ANC, soil organic matter (SOM), and cation exchange capacity (CEC) decreased significantly. ANC analysis appears to be effective in detecting acidification trends over short periods and, in contrast to previous studies, under ostensibly unremarkable conditions. 

Focusing on pedochemical change in cultivated soils, this chapter provides an example of how soils and social power relations can be studied together. Soil and farming input data were gathered in 2008–2010 from fields characterized as Hydromorphic Meadow soils. Semi-structured interviews addressed farming practices and social position. Results indicate that soil pH is differentially affected by intrinsic soil properties and farming impacts that vary by class, gender, and ethnicity. Soil pH trends are found to be interlinked in multiple directions with current social inequalities because of past and current combinations of soil and social processes. Decreasing pH associates with male, middle-income status. The inverse is linked to wealthier males, through amendments and appropriation of soil-alkalizing legacies, and to poor Roma women, through low agrochemical input and less-demanding crops.