Soil type
A soil type is a taxonomic unit in soil science. All soils that share a certain set of well-defined properties form a distinctive soil type.[1] Soil type is a technical term of soil classification, the science that deals with the systematic categorization of soils. Every soil of the world belongs to a certain soil type. Soil type is an abstract term. In nature, you will not find soil types. You will find soils that belong to a certain soil type.
In hierarchical soil classification systems, soil types mostly belong to the higher or intermediate level. A soil type can normally be subdivided into subtypes, and in many systems several soil types can be combined to entities of higher category. However, in the first classification system of the United States (Whitney, 1909),[2] the soil type was the lowest level and the mapping unit.
For the definition of soil types, some systems use primarily such characteristics that are the result of soil-forming processes (
A convenient way to define a soil type is referring to
Because soil type is a very general and widely used term, many soil classification systems do not use it for their definitions. The USDA soil taxonomy has six hierarchical levels that are named order, suborder, great group, subgroup, family, and series. The WRB calls the first level Reference Soil Group. The second level in WRB is constructed by adding qualifiers, and for the result (the Reference Soil Group plus the qualifiers), no taxonomic term is used.
See also
References
- ^ W.E.H. Blum, P. Schad, S. Nortcliff (2018). Essentials of soil science. Borntraeger Science Publishers, Stuttgart.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ M. Whitney (1909). Soils of the United States. US Dept. Agric. Bur. Soil Bull. 55. Washington, D.C.
- ^ Ad-hoc-AG Boden (2005). Bodenkundliche Kartieranleitung, 5. Auflage. Schweizerbart, Stuttgart.
- ^ IUSS Working Group WRB (2022). "World Reference Base for Soil Resources, 4th edition". IUSS, Vienna.
- ^ "Keys to Soil Taxonomy 2014". Archived from the original on 2018-11-28. Retrieved 2018-12-03.
- ^ R.F. Isbell and the National Committee on Soil and Terrain (2016). "Australian Soil Classification, second edition (as Online Interactive Key)". CSIRO.