Karl-Eugen Rehfuess
Karl-Eugen Rehfuess (born March 21, 1933 in Pforzheim ) is a German soil and forest scientist . He made a significant contribution to the further development of scientific soil science and site studies, in particular to research into the "new" types of forest damage ( forest dieback ) in the 1980s.
Life
Karl-Eugen Rehfuess was born on March 21, 1933 in Pforzheim and grew up as the son of a sawmill owner in Höfen an der Enz , Calw district in the northern Black Forest . After attending primary school in Höfen, he graduated from grammar school in Neuenbürg in 1952 with the highest school leaving certificate in the district of Südwürttemberg-Hohenzollern . From 1952 to 1956 he studied forest science at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München . This was followed by his legal clerkship (1956–1959) and work as a site mapper in the area of the South Württemberg Forestry Directorate. From 1962 to 1963 he headed the Sulz Forestry Office on the Upper Neckar in the service of the Baden-Württemberg State Forest Administration.
In 1958 Rehfuess received his doctorate from Ganssen at the natural science and mathematics faculty of the Freiburg Albert Ludwig University with the dissertation Contributions to the knowledge of soil development on Tephrit in the Kaiserstuhl . From 1963 to 1967 at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, he specialized in soil science and plant nutrition under Willi Laatsch and completed this work with his habilitation on the nutritional status of southern German fir stocks. This was followed by a time as an employee of the Baden-Württemberg Forestry Experimental and Research Institute in Stuttgart, before he was appointed Scientific Counselor and Professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich in 1969, where he was professor of soil science at the Faculty of Forestry from 1972 to 1999 was. He was Dean twice, from 1977 to 1979 and 1991 to 1993 . As a prominent member of the Forest Science Faculty, he was also on par with academic administration, especially during the phase of the move from Munich to Weihenstephan .
Karl-Eugen Rehfuess was a member of numerous organizations and committees, such as Chairman of the IUFRO -Working Party Forest Fertilization (1971–1986), co-editor of the Forstwissenschaftlichen Centralblatt (1977–1997), member of the research advisory board "Forest Damage / Air Pollution" of the Federal Government and the Länder ( 1983–1986), member of the Advisory Board for Nature Conservation and Landscape Management at the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forests and Federal Ministry for the Environment (1983–1987), member of the expert group “Forest Damage and Air Pollution in Switzerland” at the Swiss National Fund for the Promotion of Scientific Research Bern (1984–1991), member of the board of trustees of the Fraunhofer Institute for Atmospheric Environmental Research in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (1986–1998), chairman of the technical committee of the German Research Foundation (1988–1992), member and deputy chair of the board of trustees of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation FVS (1996-2007) and member of Commission for Ecology of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .
Services
Karl-Eugen Rehfuess is characterized by his differentiated and critical scientific statements. For him, in teaching and research, the great structural and functional diversity of the Central European forest ecosystems and their forest soils is always in the foreground and he always warns emphatically against frivolous generalizations. He made a name for himself in particular due to his differentiated view of the phenomenon of "new" forest damage and, as a very good observer with foresight, kept a cool head even in times of heated discussions.
His special focus is on forest soils in general and on forest site studies , in particular the relationships between location, growth performance, susceptibility to disease and nutritional status of coniferous forests as well as the amelioration of degraded forest soils. His test facilities have always been characterized by holistic thinking and sustainability . The German Research Foundation funded, among other things, his international research project “Influence of soil properties on the distribution of forest and savannah in Chiquitania (Bolivia)”.
In addition, he was very committed to teaching in the field of soil science at the forestry, geoscientific and biological faculties of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. With his textbook forest floors. Development, properties and benefits , he created a standard work that was translated into numerous languages (1st edition 1981, 2nd edition 1990).
Fonts
- Forest floors. Development, properties and use. Parey's Study Texts, No. 29. Parey, Hamburg and Berlin 1981, 192 pp., ISBN 3-490-06816-5 and 1990, 294 pp., ISBN 3-49006716-9
literature
- Hansjürg Steinlin : Prof. Dr. KE Rehfuess 60 years . In: "Allgemeine Forst- und Jagdzeitung". 164th year, issue 6, p. 116, ISSN 0002-5852
- Hermann Rodenkirchen: in: General forest and hunting newspaper . 1999 (14), p. 744, ISSN 0002-5852
Web links
- Literature by and about Karl-Eugen Rehfuess in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rehfuess, Karl-Eugen |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German soil scientist, forest scientist and university professor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 21, 1933 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Pforzheim |