FAO Soil Classification
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FAO Soil Classification
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) developed a supra-national classification, which offers useful generalizations about pedogenesis in relation to the interactions between the main soil-forming factors. It was first published in form of the UNESCO Soil Map of the World (1974) (scale 1 : 5 M.). Many of the names offered in that classification are known in many countries and do have similar meanings. Originally developed as a legend to the Soil Map of the World, the classification was applied by United Nations sponsored projects. Many countries modified this system to fit their particular needs. The Soil Units (106) were mapped as Soil Associations, designated by the dominant soil unit: * with soil phases (soil properties, such as saline, lithic, stony), * with three textural classes (coarse, medium, and fine) * three slopes classes superimposed (level to gently undulating, rolling to hilly, and steeply dissected to mountainous) The 106 Soil Units for ...
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Food And Agriculture Organization Of The United Nations
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an international organization that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security. Its Latin motto, ', translates to "let there be bread". It was founded on 16 October 1945. The FAO is composed of 195 members (including 194 countries and the European Union). Their headquarters is in Rome, Italy, and the FAO maintains regional and field offices around the world, operating in over 130 countries. It helps governments and development agencies coordinate their activities to improve and develop agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and land and water resources. It also conducts research, provides technical assistance to projects, operates educational and training programs, and collects data on agricultural output, prod ...
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Lithosols
Orthents are soils defined in USDA soil taxonomy as entisols that lack due to either steep slopes or parent materials that contain no permanent weatherable minerals (such as ironstone). Typically, Orthents are exceedingly shallow soils. They are often referred to as ''skeletal soils'' or, in the United Nations FAO soil classification, as ''lithosols''. The basic requirement for recognition of an orthent is that any former soil has been either completely removed or so truncated that characteristics typical of all orders other than entisols are absent. Characteristics Most orthents are found in very steep, mountainous regions where erodible material is so rapidly removed by erosion that a permanent covering of deep soil cannot establish itself. Such conditions occur in almost all regions of the world where steep slopes are prevalent. In Australia and a few regions of Africa, orthents occur in flat terrain because the parent rock contains ''absolutely no weatherable minerals ex ...
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Vertisols
A vertisol, or vertosol, is a soil type in which there is a high content of expansive clay minerals, many of them known as montmorillonite, that form deep cracks in drier seasons or years. In a phenomenon known as argillipedoturbation, alternate shrinking and swelling causes ''self-ploughing'', where the soil material consistently mixes itself, causing some vertisols to have an extremely deep A horizon and no B horizon. (A soil with no B horizon is called an ''A/C soil''). This heaving of the underlying material to the surface often creates a microrelief known as ''gilgai''. Vertisols typically form from highly basic rocks, such as basalt, in climates that are seasonally humid or subject to erratic droughts and floods, or that impeded drainage. Depending on the parent material and the climate, they can range from grey or red to the more familiar deep black (known as "black earths" in Australia, "black gumbo" in East Texas, "black cotton" soils in East Africa, and "vlei soils" in ...
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Solonetz
Solonetz ( uk, Солонець, rus, Солоне́ц, p=səlɐˈnʲɛts) is a Reference Soil Group of the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). They have, within the upper 100 cm of the soil profile, a so-called "natric horizon" ("natrium" is the Latin term for sodium). There is a subsurface horizon (subsoil), higher in clay content than the upper horizon, that has more than 15% exchangeable sodium. The name is based on the Russian соль (sol, meaning salt). Ukrainian folk word "solontsi" means salty soil. In Ukraine there are many villages that are called Solontsі. Solonetz zones are associated with Gleysols, Solonchaks and Kastanozems. In USDA soil taxonomy, Solonetz corresponds to sodium-rich Alfisols. See also *Chott *Salt marsh *Soil salinity *Solonchak *Takir Takir (takyr) (russian: такыр, originally from Kazakh or another Turkic language) meaning "smooth, even, or bare", is a type of relief occurring in the deserts of Central Asia, similar to a ...
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Solonchaks
Solonchak (Russian and Ukrainian: Солончак) is a Reference Soil Group of the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). It is a pale or grey soil type found in arid to subhumid, poorly drained conditions. The word is Russian for "salt marsh" in turn from Russian ''sol'' (соль), "salt". Ukrainian folk word "солончак" in turn from Ukrainian "salty" (солоний) + "чак"—suffix; designation of an object that has the property. In Ukraine there is a village Solonchaky. See also * Chott *Salt marsh *Soil salinity *Solonetz *Takir Takir (takyr) (russian: такыр, originally from Kazakh or another Turkic language) meaning "smooth, even, or bare", is a type of relief occurring in the deserts of Central Asia, similar to a salt flat in the southwestern United States. A ta ... * Salt pan References * IUSS Working Group WRB: World Reference Base for Soil Resources, fourth edition. International Union of Soil Sciences, Vienna 2022. . Further reading ...
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Rendzina
Rendzina (or ''rendsina'') is a soil type recognized in various soil classification systems, including those of Britain and Germany as well as some obsolete systems. They are humus-rich shallow soils that are usually formed from carbonate- or occasionally sulfate-rich parent material. Rendzina soils are often found in karst and mountainous regions. The term ''rendzina'' originated via Russian from the Polish ''rędzina'', of unknown origin.https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rendzina Merriam-Webster In the World Reference Base for Soil Resources, rendzina soils would be classified as leptosols, chernozems, kastanozems, or phaeozems, depending on their specific characteristics. Development and distribution Rendzina soils typically develop from solid or unconsolidated rocky material that is carbonate- or sulphate-rich. Limestone is by far the most common, but others include dolomite, gypsum, marble, chalk and marlstone. Alongside physical weathering, which breaks down the ...
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Regosols
A Regosol in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) is very weakly developed mineral soil in unconsolidated materials. Regosols are extensive in eroding lands, in particular in arid and semi-arid areas and in mountain regions. Internationally, Regosols correlate with soil taxa that are marked by incipient soil formation such as Entisols in the USDA soil taxonomy or Rudosols and possibly some Tenosols in the Australian Soil Classification. The group of Regosols is a taxonomic rest group containing all soils that could not be accommodated in any of the other groups. Excluded from the Regosols are weakly developed soils that classify as Leptosols (very shallow soils), Arenosols (sandy soils) or Fluvisols (in recent alluvial deposits). These soils have AC- profiles. Profile development is minimal as a consequence of young age and/or slow soil formation. Land use and management of Regosols vary widely. Some Regosols are used for capital-intensive irrigated farming but th ...
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Rankers
Rankers are soils developed over non-calcareous material, usually rock. They are regarded in some soil classifications as lithomorphic soils, a group which also includes rendzinas, similar soils over calcareous material. They are often called A/C soils, as the topsoil or A horizon is immediately over a C horizon (unaltered parent material Parent material is the underlying geological material (generally bedrock or a superficial or drift deposit) in which soil horizons form. Soils typically inherit a great deal of structure and minerals from their parent material, and, as such, are ...).Soil Glossary
. InnVista.com. Accessed May 5, 2012.


References

Pedology
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Podzoluvisols
Albeluvisol was a Reference Soil Group of the first edition (1998) and the second edition (2006) of the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). In the third edition of the WRB (2014), Albeluvisols were replaced by the broader defined Retisols. An Albeluvisol is a soil with a thin, dark surface horizon on a bleached subsurface horizon (an albic horizon) that tongues into a clay illuviation (Bt) horizon. The Bt horizon has an irregular or broken upper boundary resulting from the tonguing of bleached soil material into the illuviation horizon. Albeluvisols correlate with Glossaqualfs, Glossocryalfs and Glossudalfs in the USDA soil taxonomy. These soils are formed mostly in unconsolidated glacial till, lacustrine or fluvial materials or aeolian deposits such as loess. They occur on flat to undulating plains under coniferous forest or mixed forest in boreal and temperate climates with cold winters and short cool summers. The agricultural suitability of Albeluvisols is limited ...
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Podzols
In soil science, podzols are the typical soils of coniferous or boreal forests and also the typical soils of eucalypt forests and heathlands in southern Australia. In Western Europe, podzols develop on heathland, which is often a construct of human interference through grazing and burning. In some British moorlands with podzolic soils, cambisols are preserved under Bronze Age barrows (Dimbleby, 1962). Term Podzol means "under-ash" and is derived from the Russian под (pod) + зола́ (zola); the full form is "подзо́листая по́чва" (podzolistaya pochva, "under-ashed soil"). The term was first given in middle of 1875 by Vasily Dokuchaev. It refers to the common experience of Russian peasants of plowing up an apparent under-layer of ash (leached or E horizon) during first plowing of a virgin soil of this type. Characteristics Podzols can occur on almost any parent material but generally derive from either quartz-rich sands and sandstone or sedimentary debris ...
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Planosols
A Planosol in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources is a soil with a light-coloured, coarse-textured, surface horizon that shows signs of periodic water stagnation and abruptly overlies a dense, slowly permeable subsoil with significantly more clay than the surface horizon. In the US Soil Classification of 1938 used the name Planosols, whereas its successor, the USDA soil taxonomy, includes most Planosols in the ''Great Groups'' Albaqualfs, Albaquults and Argialbolls. These soils are typically in seasonally waterlogged flat lands. They occur mainly in subtropical and temperate, semi-arid and subhumid regions. Planosols are formed mostly in clayey alluvial and colluvial deposits. Geological stratification and/or a pedogenetic process of destruction and removal of clay has resulted in the relatively coarse-textured, light-coloured surface soil abruptly overlying finer textured subsoil; impeded downward percolation of water causes temporarily reducing conditions with a stagn ...
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