The two principal systems of soil classification in use today are the soil order system of the U.S. Soil Taxonomy and the soil group system, published as the World Reference Base for Soil Resources, developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Both of these systems are morphogenetic, in that they use structural properties as the basis of classification while also drawing on the five factors of soil formation described in the previous section in choosing which properties to emphasize.
Central to both systems is the notion of diagnostic horizons, well-defined soil layers whose structure and origin may be correlated to soil-forming processes and can be used to distinguish among soil units at the highest level of classification (see the table of primary diagnostic horizons). Diagnostic horizons may be found very near the land surface (epipedons) or deep in the soil profile (subsurface horizons); they need not correspond to the horizon letter designations shown in the table of soil horizon letter designations.
|U.S. Soil Taxonomy||defining features||FAO soil group system|
|histic||thick organic layer||histic|
|.||mollic||thick, dark, neutral to alkaline||mollic|
|ochric||pale or thin||ochric|
|.||umbric||thick, dark, acidic||umbric|
|argillic||clay mineral deposition||argic|
|.||cambic||in situ mineral weathering only||cambic|
|oxic||highly weathered; aluminum oxide,
iron oxide, and kaolin clay deposition
|.||spodic||aluminum oxide, iron oxide,
and humus deposition
The existence of a diagnostic horizon in a soil profile often is sufficient to indicate its taxonomic class at the level of order (U.S.) or group (FAO). For example, soil profiles with mollic epipedons are in the Mollisol order of the U.S. Soil Taxonomy. Alternatively, mollic A horizons occur distinctively in the FAO soil groups whose properties are conditioned by a steppe environment (that is, Chernozem, Kastanozem, and Phaeozem). The U.S. and FAO names both denote soils that have formed in plains under grassland vegetation, whose extensive root growth leads to a high content of humus in the A horizon. Often, however, the correspondence between the two taxonomic systems is not as close as in this example, a point quite evident when soil maps of the United States based on the U.S. and FAO taxonomies are compared.
The U.S. Soil Taxonomy classifies soils within a hierarchy of six categories. Only the highest-level category, order, is discussed here. Soil orders are named by adding the suffix -sol to a root word, as shown in the table of the U.S. Soil Taxonomy. The resulting 12 soil order names thus represent a classification based either on parent material or on processes related to the five factors of soil formation as reflected in diagnostic horizons. The defining characteristics listed in the centre of the table are paraphrasings of more technical criteria that use the letter designations in the table of soil horizon letter designations as well as pedologic data available from field or laboratory observations.
|U.S. Soil Taxonomy|
|soil order||defining characteristics||name derivation||percent of Earth's land area*|
|Alfisol||moderate leaching; B horizon enriched in clay; humid forest vegetation||Pedalfer (C.F. Marbut)||9.77|
|Andisol||volcanic-ash parent material||an do (Japanese: "dark soil")||0.73|
|Aridisol||hot, dry climate; weak B horizon||aridus (Latin: "dry")||18.53|
|Entisol||little or no horizonation or swelling clay||recent||10.61|
|Gelisol||permafrost within 2 metres (approximately
6 feet) of the land surface
|gelid (Greek: "very cold")||—|
|Histosol||organic parent material||histos (Greek: "tissue")||1.84|
|Inceptisol||little or no B horizon development||inceptum (Latin: "beginning")||21.80|
|Mollisol||thick, soft, black A horizon||mollis (Latin: "soft")||5.99|
|Oxisol||hot, humid climate; B horizon enriched in iron and aluminum oxides and kaolinite||oxide (French)||7.00|
|Spodosol||cool, humid climate; B horizon enriched in iron and aluminum oxides and organic matter; sandy parent material||spodos (Greek: "wood ashes")||3.45|
|Ultisol||warm, humid climate; B horizon enriched in clay; extensive leaching||ultimus (Latin: "last")||8.12|
|Vertisol||little or no horizonation; high content of swelling clay||vertere (Latin: "to turn")||2.23|
|*Rock, sand, and bodies of water account for 5.25% of the continental land area in the world between 75° N and 75° S latitude. Gelisols cover about 18 million square km (7 million square miles) largely outside these latitudes, mostly in Russia and Canada.|
The soil orders associated with specific kinds of parent material (Andisol, Histosol, and Vertisol) account for less than 5 percent of the Earth’s continental areas covered by soil. Soils that show little development because they are too young (Entisol) or lie in an adverse weathering environment (Inceptisol) represent nearly 33 percent of the land area. Soils that are likely to exhibit natural toxicity to agricultural plants because of accumulations of salts (Aridisol) or of acidity and aluminum (Spodosol, Oxisol, and Ultisol) make up almost 40 percent of the total. This leaves essentially only the Alfisols and Mollisols—with about 15 percent of the total land area—as the inherently more fertile soils of the world. They occupy a strategic belt at middle latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere and in South America.
FAO soil groups
The classification system of the FAO primarily involves a two-level nomenclature comprising the name of a soil group and a modifying adjective that serves to identify a soil unit within a group on the FAO Soil Map of the World. It is not meant to substitute for national soil classification systems such as the U.S. Soil Taxonomy but instead is designed to facilitate comparisons among these systems. Only the major soil groups are discussed here. Four of the soil groups are defined principally by their parent material (first cluster in the table of the classification system of the FAO), four are largely related to topographic factors in soil formation (second cluster in the table), and the remaining 22 groups are based on the three other soil-forming factors: climate, organisms, and time. Like the U.S. soil orders, the soil groups in the FAO system are based on extensive sets of field and laboratory observations and on technical criteria more precise than the simplified defining characteristics given in the centre of the table.
|Soil classification system of the Food and Agriculture Organization|
|Soils defined by parent material|
|Andosol||AN||volcanic ejects||an do (Japanese: "dark soil")||0.88|
|Arenosol||AR||sands||arena (Latin: "sand")||7.17|
|Histosol||HS||organic matter||histos (Greek: "tissue")||2.51|
|Vertisol||VR||swelling clays||vertere (Latin:
|Soils defined by topography|
|Fluvisol||FL||alluvial lowlands||fluvius (Latin: "river")||2.79|
|gley (Russian: "mucky soil
|Leptosol||LP||eroded uplands||leptos (Greek: "thin")||13.19|
|rhegos (Greek: "blanket")||2.07|
|Soils defined by climate, organisms, and time|
|Calcisol||CL||calcium carbonate accumulation||calix (Latin: "lime")||6.38|
|gypsum (Latin: "calcium sulfate")||0.72|
|Solonchak||SC||salt accumulation||sol chak (Russian: "salty area")||2.55|
|sol etz (Russian: "strongly salty")||1.08|
|Durisol||DU||silica accumulation||durum (Latin: "hard")||—|
|Chernozem||CH||cold steppe environment||chern zemlja (Russian: "black earth")||1.83|
|Umbrisol||UM||cool, wet steppe environment||umbra (Latin: "shade")||0.80|
|Kastanozem||KS||warm, dry steppe environment||castanea zemlja (Latin-Russian: "chestnut earth")||3.71|
|Phaeozem||PH||warm, wet steppe environment||phaios zemlja (Greek-Russian: "dusky earth")||1.51|
|acer (Latin: "strong acid")||7.97|
|alumen (Latin: "aluminum")||0.80|
weathered; humid tropics
|ferrum alumen (Latin: "iron-
|lixivia (Latin: "washing")||3.47|
|Nitisol||NT||extensive clay migration; tropics||nitidus (Latin: "shiny")||1.59|
|plinthos (Greek: "brick")||0.48|
|Luvisol||LV||clay accumulation; distinct seasons||luere (Latin: "to wash")||5.18|
|Planosol||PL||clayey horizon||planus (Latin: "flat")||1.04|
iron and aluminum oxides and humus
|pod zola (Russian: "under ash")||3.87|
|albus (Latin: "white")||2.55|
and thawing; waterlogged
during thaw; permafrost within
1 metre (3 feet) of
the land surface
|kryros (Greek: "cold")||—|
|Anthrosol||AT||extensive human modification||anthropos (Greek: "man")||0.004|
|cambiare (Latin: "to change")||11.96|
Some of the FAO soil groups are quite comparable to soil orders in the U.S. Soil Taxonomy (for example, Andosol, Cambisol, Histosol, and Vertisol). Others correspond more closely to lower levels of nomenclature than the soil order; for example, Gypsisol, Calcisol, Solonchak, and Solonetz would be classified mostly within the U.S. Aridisol order. Still others have no equivalent within the U.S. taxonomy (for example, Anthrosol).
The FAO designates eight soil groups—Cambisol, Chernozem, Fluvisol, Gleysol, Kastanozem, Phaeozem, Umbrisol, and Vertisol—as having a high inherent soil fertility. They constitute 31 percent of the total land area (see the table of the classification system of the FAO). This figure would drop to 16 percent if the Cambisol and Vertisol groups were excluded, an estimate quite close to that made above for the more fertile U.S. soil orders. The soil groups that according to the FAO present toxicity hazards from salt accumulation (Calcisol, Gypsisol, Solonchak, and Solonetz) or aridity and aluminum accumulation (Acrisol, Alisol, and Ferralsol) cover about 25 percent of the land area. This figure would increase to about 33 percent if more tropical soil groups and the Podzol and Albeluvisol groups were included. Thus, both systems of soil classification conclude that the inherently more fertile soils are but a small portion of the total soil resources on Earth.
Soil profiles are continually disrupted by the actions of flowing water, wind, or ice and by the force of gravity. These erosive processes remove soil particles from A horizons and expose subsurface horizons to weathering, resulting in the loss of humus, plant nutrients, and beneficial soil organisms. Not only are these losses of paramount importance to agriculture and forestry, but the removal, transport, and subsequent deposition of soil can have significant economic consequences by damaging buildings, bridges, culverts, and other structures.
Water-induced erosion can take various forms depending on climate and topography. The force of rainfall striking a land surface unimpeded by vegetation or man-made structures is sufficient to raise 15 cm (6 inches) of material from an A horizon nearly 1 metre (39 inches) into the air. The impact of raindrops breaks the bonds holding soil aggregates together and catapults the particles into the flowing water from surface runoff. Wholesale removal of soil particles by the sheet flow of water (sheet erosion) or by flow in small channels (rill erosion) accounts for most of the water-induced soil loss from exposed land surfaces. More spectacular but less prevalent types of erosion are gully erosion, in which water concentrates in channels too deep to smooth over by tilling, and streambank erosion, in which the saturated sides of running streams tumble into the moving water below. The same forces at work in streambank erosion are seen in soils on hillslopes that become thoroughly saturated with water. Gravity, able to overcome the cohesive forces that hold soil particles together, can cause the entire soil profile to move downslope—a phenomenon called mass movement. This movement may be either slow (soil creep), rapid (debris flow or mudflow), or sometimes catastrophic (landslide).
The mechanisms involved in wind erosion depend on soil texture and the size of soil particles. Dry soil particles of silt or clay size can be transported over great distance by wind. Larger particles that are the size of fine sand, 0.05 mm (0.002 inch) to 0.5 mm (0.02 inch) in diameter, can be vaulted as high as 25 cm (10 inches) into the air, then drop to the ground after a short flight, only to rebound under the continual driving force of the wind. Coarser sand particles are not lifted, but they can tumble along the land surface. The major cause of wind erosion is the jumping motion of the smaller soil particles, a process called saltation. The texture of the windblown surfaces of these soils becomes coarser, making them less chemically reactive and less able to retain plant nutrients or trap pollutants. In arid regions, wind erosion often produces a gravelly land surface known as desert pavement.
Rates of soil erosion
Soil erosion and deposition are natural geomorphic processes that give shape to landforms and provide new parent material for the development of soil profiles. These processes become soil conservation issues when the rate of erosion greatly exceeds the rate expected in the absence of human land use—a situation referred to as accelerated erosion. Rates of normal soil erosion have been estimated from measurements of sediment transport and accumulation, mass movement on hillslopes, and radioactive carbon dating of landforms. They range from less than 0.02 to more than 10 metric tons per hectare (0.01 to 4.5 tons per acre) of soil lost annually. In comparison the rates of natural soil formation range from 0.2 to 9 metric tons per hectare per year. The average annual rate of normal soil erosion is nearly 1 metric ton per hectare (0.45 ton per acre), while that of natural soil formation is nearly 0.7 metric ton per hectare (0.3 ton per acre). Broad variation is the rule, but rates of soil loss exceeding 10 metric tons per hectare annually signal accelerated erosion. It is important to note that this accelerated soil loss is equivalent to less than 1 mm (0.04 inch) of soil depth, making erosion damage very difficult to observe over short time spans.
When climate and topography are fixed and soil cover is varied, the rate of soil loss by water erosion has a predictable and dramatic dependence on vegetation. Irrespective of location, erosion losses are usually very small from forestland or permanent pastureland, moderate to high from land planted with grain crops, and very high from clean-tilled orchards, vineyards, and land planted with row crops, as shown in the.
Resistance to erosion
The ability of soils to resist water and wind erosion depends on their texture and topographic characteristics. Clay-rich soils resist erosion well because of strong cohesive forces between particles and the gluelike characteristics of humus. Both loam and sandy soils are moderately resistant to erosion—the former because they have sufficient clay content to hold the particles together, the latter because their high permeability limits the amount of surface runoff that can wash soil particles away, while their larger particle size makes them too heavy to be easily entrained (transported) in flowing water. Silty soils, on the other hand, exhibit the least resistance to erosion because their permeability is low (resulting in more surface runoff), and their particle size is neither small enough to promote cohesion nor large enough to prevent entrainment. Soils on steep, long slopes are much more susceptible to erosion than those on shallow, short slopes because the steeper slopes accelerate the flow of surface runoff.
The development of soil conservation strategies requires knowledge of actual and acceptable rates of soil erosion. A practical measure of soil resistance to erosion used by pedologists in the United States is the soil loss tolerance (T-value, or T-factor). This quantity is defined as the maximum annual rate of soil loss by erosion that will permit high soil productivity for an indefinite period of time. Operationally, the concept is interpreted as the maximum annual loss from the A horizon that does not reduce the thickness of the rooting zone significantly over millennia.
Guidelines have been developed by the U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service to assist field estimations of the T-value based on texture, topography, and depth to bedrock or to a root-impeding layer (hardpan) in a soil profile. Deep, coarse-textured soils are assigned a T-value of 11.2 metric tons per hectare (5 tons per acre), fine-textured soils have a T-value of 9 metric tons per hectare (4 tons per acre), and shallow soils or those with an impeding layer are assigned T-values in the range of 2.2–6.7 metric tons per hectare (1–3 tons per acre), depending on texture. Unfavourable slope characteristics are used to modify these values downward as experience may warrant.
Soils in ecosystems
An ecosystem is a collection of organisms and the local environment with which they interact. For the soil scientist studying microbiological processes, ecosystem boundaries may enclose a single soil horizon or a soil profile. When nutrient cycling or the effects of management practices on soils are being considered, the ecosystem may be as large as an entire plant community and soil polypedon system.
Soils are dynamic, open habitats that provide plants with physical support, water, nutrients, and air for growth. Soils also sustain an enormous population of microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi that recycle chemical elements, notably carbon and nitrogen, as well as elements that are toxic. The carbon and nitrogen cycles are important natural processes that involve the uptake of nutrients from soil, the return of organic matter to the soil by tissue aging and death, the decomposition of organic matter by soil microbes (during which nutrients or toxins may be cycled within the microbial community), and the release of nutrients into soil for uptake once again. These cycles are closely linked to the hydrologic cycle, since water functions as the primary medium for chemical transport.
Nitrogen (N), one of the major nutrients, originates in the atmosphere. It is transformed and transported through the ecosystem by the water cycle and biological processes. This nutrient enters the biosphere primarily as wet deposition to the soil surface (throughfall), where plants, microbial decomposers, or nitrifiers (microbes that convert ammonium [NH4+] to nitrate [NO3−]) compete for it. This competition plays a major role in determining the extent to which incoming nitrogen will be retained within an ecosystem.
Carbon (C) also enters the ecosystem from the atmosphere—in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2)—and is taken up by plants and converted into biomass. Organic matter in the soil in the form of humus and other biomass contains about three times as much carbon as does land vegetation. Soils of arid and semiarid regions also store carbon in inorganic chemical forms, primarily as calcium carbonate (CaCO3). These pools of carbon are important components of the global carbon cycle because of their location near the land surface, where they are subject to erosion and decomposition. Each year, soils release 4–5 percent of their carbon to the atmosphere by the transformation of organic matter into CO2 gas, a process termed soil respiration. This amount of CO2 is more than 10 times larger than that currently produced from the burning of fossil fuels (coal and petroleum), but it is returned to the soil as organic matter by the production of biomass.
A large portion of the soil carbon pool is susceptible to loss as a result of human activities. Land-use changes associated with agriculture can disrupt the natural balance between the production of carbon-containing biomass and the release of carbon by soil respiration. One estimate suggests that this imbalance alone results in an annual net release of CO2 to the atmosphere from agricultural soils equal to about 20 percent of the current annual release of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels. Agricultural practices in temperate zones, for example, can result in a decline of soil organic matter that ranges from 20 to 40 percent of the original content after about 50 years of cultivation. Although a portion of this loss can be attributed to soil erosion, the majority is from an increased flux of carbon to the atmosphere as CO2. The draining of peatlands may cause similarly large losses in soil carbon storage.
Soils and global change
Soils and climate have always been closely related. The predicted temperature increases due to global warming and the consequent change in rainfall patterns are expected to have a substantial impact on both soils and demographics. This anticipated climatic change is thought to be driven by the greenhouse effect—an increase in levels of certain trace gases in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O). The conversion of land to agriculture, especially in the humid tropics, is an important contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Some computer models predict that CH4 and N2O emissions will also be very important in future global change. About 70 percent of the CH4 and 90 percent of the N2O in the atmosphere are derived from soil processes. But soils can also function as repositories for these gases, and it is important to appreciate the complexity of the source-repository relationship. For example, the application of nitrogen-containing fertilizers reduces the ability of the soil to process CH4. Even the amount of nitrogen introduced into soil from acid rain on forests is sufficient to produce this effect. However, the extent of net emissions of CH4 and N2O and the microbial trade-off between the two gases are undetermined at the global scale.
Perhaps the most notable and pervasive role of soils in global change phenomena is the regulation of the CO2 budget. Carbon that is stored in terrestrial plants mainly through photosynthesis is called net primary production or NPP and is the dominant source of food, fuel, fibre, and feed for the entire population of the Earth. Approximately 55 billion metric tons (61 billion tons) of carbon are stored in this way each year worldwide, most of it in forests. About 800 million hectares (20 billion acres) of forestland have been lost since the dawn of civilization; this translates to about 6 billion metric tons of carbon per year less NPP than before land was cleared for agriculture and commerce. This estimated decrease in carbon storage can be compared to the 5–6 billion metric tons of carbon currently released per year by fossil fuel burning. One is left with the sobering conclusion that reforestation of the entire planet to primordial levels would have only a temporary counterbalancing effect on carbon release to the atmosphere from human consumption of natural resources.
Carbon in terrestrial biomass that is not used directly becomes carbon in litter (about 25 billion metric tons of carbon annually) and is eventually incorporated into soil humus. Soil respiration currently releases an average of 68 billion metric tons of this carbon back into the atmosphere. The natural cycling of carbon is directly and indirectly affected by land-use changes through deforestation, reforestation, wood products decomposition, and abandonment of agricultural land. The current estimate of carbon loss from all these changes averages about 1.7 billion metric tons per year worldwide, or about one-third the current loss from fossil fuel burning. This figure could as much as double in the first half of the 21st century if the rate of deforestation is not controlled. Reforestation, on the other hand, could actually reduce the current carbon loss by up to 10 percent without exorbitant demands on management practices.