The University of Western Australia

Professor Martin Fey

Professorial Fellow
School of Earth and Environment

Contact details

Address

School of Earth and Environment
The University of Western Australia (M087)
35 Stirling Highway
CRAWLEY WA 6009
Australia

Phone

6488 1937

Fax

6488 1050

Email

martin.fey@uwa.edu.au

Qualifications

BSc(Agric), PhD Natal

Biography

Born in Kenya, 1950; educated in Kenya, the UK and South Africa. Qualifications: BSc Agric. (Natal) 1972, majoring in Soil Science and Chemistry; PhD (Natal) 1976, thesis on Characteristics of Sesquioxidic Soils.
1972-1975: Professional Officer, Soil & Irrigation Research Institute, SA Department of Agricultural Technical Services: soil mapping
1975-1977: H Redinger Exploration and Development (Pty) Ltd: bauxite exploration
1977: Temporary Lecturer in Soil Science, University of Natal
1978-1979: Post-doctoral research associate, Texas A & M University
1979-1992: Lecturer /Senior lecturer/Associate Professor in Soil Science, University of Natal
1986: Visiting Professor, Department of Agronomy, University of Georgia
1992-93: Head, Department of Agronomy, University of Natal
1994-2000: Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Cape Town: environmental geochemistry
2000-2008: Professor and Chair of Soil Science, University of Stellenbosch
2009- Professorial Fellow, School of Earth and Environment, University of Western Australia.
Martin Fey’s university teaching subjects have included soil chemistry, soil fertility and plant nutrition, pedology, clay mineralogy and environmental geochemistry. His research has mainly been done with more than 60 MSc and PhD students. He has authored or co-authored about 60 peer-reviewed scientific articles and has presented papers at international conferences in the UK, France, Poland, New Zealand, Mexico, USA, Canada, Ireland, Australia, Tanzania, Germany and Brazil. In 2000 he convened the 5th International Symposium on Environmental Geochemistry in Cape Town. He formerly served as editor of the South African Journal of Plant and Soil and on the editorial board of Applied Geochemistry. He has worked closely with several South African agricultural, industrial and mining companies, has consulted on soil problems with maize production in the Congo, has visited Kenya regularly to advise on soil problems in the tea industry and has investigated bauxite deposits in Guyana. His awards include the BP scholarship in Agriculture, the Soil Science Society of South Africa medal for best conference paper (four times) and the Fertilizer Society of South Africa’s Silver Medal for Research (ca 1990) and Gold medal (2007) for teaching, research and extension activities. He served on the South African Soil Classification Working Group and the National Research Foundation evaluation panel for Earth Sciences. His recent research activities have included dryland salinity and water quality in the Western Cape, evaluating soils as protectors of groundwater quality, using coal ash for liming acid soils and writing a technical book on the soils of South Africa. His current appointment includes some teaching but focuses on research into the rehabilitation and reuse of bauxite processing residues and other mining wastes.

Key research

Environmental soil science, focusing on rehabilitation and reuse of bauxite processing residues and other mining wastes.

Publications

Recent publications since 2006:

Fey M V, Mills A J & Yaalon D H 2006. The alternative meaning of pedoderm and its use for soil surface characterization. Geoderma 133: 474–477
Mills A. J., M. V. Fey, A. Gröngröft, A. Petersen, and T. V. Medinski 2006. Unraveling the effects of soil properties on water infiltration: segmented quantile regression on a large data set from arid south-west Africa Australian J Soil Research 44, 783–797.
Ndala S.M., M.C. Scholes and M.V. Fey 2006 Soil properties and processes driving the leaching of nitrate in the forested catchments of the eastern escarpment of South Africa. Forest Ecology and Management 236, 142-152.
Dowding C.E. and M.V. Fey 2007. Morphological, chemical and mineralogical properties of some manganese-rich oxisols derived from dolomite in Mpumalanga province, South Africa Geoderma 141, 23-33.
Francis, M. L., M. V. Fey, H. P. Prinsloo, F. Ellis, A. J. Mills, and T. Medinski 2007. Soils of Namaqualand: compensations for aridity. Journal of Arid Environments 70, 588–603.
Ringrose S., Huntsman-Mapila P., Downey W., Coetzee S., Fey M., Vanderpost C., Vink B., Kemosidile T. and Kolokose D. (2008) Diagenesis in Okavango fan and adjacent dune deposits with implications for the record of palaeo-environmental change in Makgadikgadi–Okavango–Zambezi basin, northern Botswana Geomorphology 101, 544–557.
Israel, S., Engelbrecht, P., Tredoux, G. and Fey, M.V. (2009). In situ batch denitrification of nitrate-rich groundwater using sawdust as a carbon source, Marydale, South Africa. Water Air and Soil Pollution 204, 177-194.
De Clercq W.P., M. Van Meirvenne and M.V. Fey 2009. Simplified prediction of the depth trend in soil salinity of a vineyard after sustained irrigation with saline water. Agricultural Water Management 96, 395-404.
Mills A.J., M.V. Fey, J Donaldson, S. Todd and L. Theron 2009. Soil infiltrability as a driver of plant cover and species richness in the semi-arid Karoo, South Africa. Plant and Soil 320, 321-332.
Mills A. J., A. Milewski, M.V. Fey, A. Gröngröft & A. Petersen 2009. Fungus culturing, nutrient mining and geophagy: a geochemical investigation of Macrotermes and Trinervitermes mounds in southern Africa. Journal of Zoology (2009) 1–12.
Medinski T.V., A.J. Mills and M.V. Fey 2009. Relationships between soil particle size fractions and infiltrability. South African Journal of Plant and Soil 26 (3), 147-156.
Medinski T.V., A.J. Mills and M.V. Fey 2009. Infiltrability in soils from south-western Africa: effects of texture, electrical conductivity and exchangeable sodium percentage. South African Journal of Plant and Soil 26(3), 157-164.
Fey, M.V., O’Brien, R.D. & Mills, A.J. 2006. Rehabilitation of waste rock and overburden dumps. R. Lal. Ed. Encyclopedia of Soil Science. 2nd Ed. Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York. pp. 1456-9.
Jovanovic, N.Z., Adams, S., Thomas, A., Fey, M.V., Beekman, H.E., Campbell, R., Saayman, I. & Conrad, J., 2006. Improved DRASTIC method for assessment of groundwater vulnerability to generic aqueous-phase contaminants. In: V. Popov, S. Kungolos, C.A. Brebbia and H. Itoh, (eds.) Waste Management and the Environment III, 393-402. ISBN 1-84564-173-6, Wit Press, Southampton, UK.
Fey, M V 2007. Soil science-based improvements in subsistence agriculture. In: S. Ntutela, W. Gevers and R. Ramaite (eds.) Proceedings of forum on science-based improvements of rural/subsistence agriculture. Committee on Science for Poverty Alleviation, Acad. Sci. South Afr., Pretoria. ISBN 978-0-620-39210-5 pp. 57-65.
Jovanovic, N.Z., Bugan, R.D.H., Frantz, G., De Clercq, W. & Fey, M.V, 2008. Hydrosalinity fluxes in a small scale catchment of the Berg river (South Africa). In: D. Prats Rico, C.A. Brebbia, Y. Villacampa Esteve (eds.) Water Pollution IX, 603-612. ISBN 978-1-84564-115-3, Wit Press, Southampton, UK.
Fey M.V. and A.J. Mills 2009. Environmental envelopes: identifying limits affecting ecosystem management after mining. In: A.B. Fourie and M. Tibbett (eds) Mine Closure 2009 Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, ISBN 978-0-9804185-9-0 pp. 33-40.
Fey MV and T. C. Santini 2009. Rehabilitation of bauxite residue: a soil science perspective. Australian Centre for Geomechanics Newsletter May 2009.
Fey MV, N Kaur and IR Phillips 2010. Inorganic pathway to soil-like conditions in alkaline residue from bauxite refining. In: Gilkes, R. J., Prakongkep, N. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 19th World Congress of Soil Science, 1-6 August 2010, Brisbane.
Dobrowolski MP, IR Phillips and MV Fey 2010. A chronosequence of bauxite residue sand: weathering and vegetation response. In: Gilkes, R. J., Prakongkep, N. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 19th World Congress of Soil Science, 1-6 August 2010, Brisbane.
Santini, T. C., Fey, M. V. & Gilkes, R. J. 2010. Weathering trajectory of bauxite residue mud as predicted by high-temperature treatment. In: Gilkes, R. J., Prakongkep, N. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 19th World Congress of Soil Science, 1-6 August 2010, Brisbane.
Fey MV 2010. A short guide to the soils of South Africa, their distribution and correlation with World Reference Base soil groups. In: Gilkes, R. J., Prakongkep, N. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 19th World Congress of Soil Science, 1-6 August 2010, Brisbane.
Fey MV 2010. Soils of South Africa. Cambridge University Press, Cape Town, 287 pp.
Fey M V 2010. How Gypsum Works as a Carbon Trap in Alkaline Wastes. Invited paper in a symposium “Soil Chemistry in the Milky Way: Honoring the Impact of Malcolm E Sumner in Soil Science”. Soil Science Society of America Annual Meetings, Long Beach, California.

Industrial relevance

Programme is funded largely by Alcoa World Alumina Australia and Worsley Alumina Pty Ltd.

Current external positions

Professor Extraordinary in the Department of Soil Science, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Research profile

Research profile and publications