{"title":"Challenges of Soil Taxonomy and WRB in classifying soils: some examples from Iranian soils","authors":"M. Salehi","doi":"10.2478/bgeo-2018-0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bgeo-2018-0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The two most widely used soil classifications are the Soil Taxonomy (ST) and the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB). The purpose of this paper is to clarify the differences and the similarities between ST and WRB in their current state, with some examples for representative soils in arid and semi-arid regions of Iran. Four representative pedons were classified and soil units from WRB were compared to those obtained by using ST at the family level. WRB could show the status of soils polluted by heavy metals through the Toxic qualifier and its subqualifiers. On the other hand, ST could indicate the status of shallow soils in our studied soils but it was not able to show gleyic conditions and the existence of a salic horizon because of the differences in its criteria compared to those of WRB. Special effort should be made to quantify various anthropogenic activities in upcoming editions of both classification systems.","PeriodicalId":43256,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Geography-Physical Geography Series","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2018-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87040282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ilia Kunchulia, Rusudan Kakhadze, G. Tsereteli, G. Ghambashidze, T. Urushadze
{"title":"Classification of shallow and skeletal mountain soils with the WRB system on the example of the Trialeti Range, Lesser Caucasus (Georgia)","authors":"Ilia Kunchulia, Rusudan Kakhadze, G. Tsereteli, G. Ghambashidze, T. Urushadze","doi":"10.2478/bgeo-2018-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bgeo-2018-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The aim of the paper is to evaluate the usefulness of the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) 2015 to classify shallow soils on mountains of the Trialeti Range, Lesser Caucasus, Georgia. The article also presents the evolution of the concept of Leptosols and of the qualifier “Leptic” and the diagnostic property of continuous rock. It also provides approaches to defining keys in the reference soil group (RSG) of Leptosols and identifying principal and supplementary qualifiers in WRB 2015 on example of soils of the Trialeti Range. The article gives few examples of classification for such shallow and stony soils with different set of qualifiers. Most of them fulfil the criteria of Leptosols and Regosols. These soils occur on the mountain range together with other RSGs (e.g. Pheozems). The authors propose to add the qualifier Technolithic to the list of Principal/Supplementary qualifiers of Leptosols.","PeriodicalId":43256,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Geography-Physical Geography Series","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2018-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87054311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Soil Classification course in Russian universities: an important ingredient of education","authors":"M. Gerasimova, O. Bezuglova","doi":"10.2478/bgeo-2018-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bgeo-2018-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The teaching of soil classification in the universities of Russia is being discussed as a comparatively new experience in the education of environmental science students. The lecture course (24–30 academic hours) changes in response to the inevitable changes in soil classification systems. In the introduction, the objectives and structure of soil classifications are outlined, and then a brief overview of the most well-known national systems is given, which is also important for understanding the difficulties, origin and problems of the International WRB system. The latter is the central point of the lecture course: its principles are explained, the main diagnostic features of Reference Soil Groups are communicated, and students are trained to use system basing on the descriptions of soil profiles and analytical data relating to them. As a result, students give WRB names to soils either by correlating with a name from the national system, which is familiar to them, or by looking at soil profile photos; in both cases morphological and analytical data are clarified by the teacher. Chernozem is used as an example for training. In the conclusion, the reasons to know soil classifications are specified, and they are differentiated for soil scientists, geochemists and geographers.","PeriodicalId":43256,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Geography-Physical Geography Series","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2018-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81637013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Zanella, Judith Ascher-Jenull, Jean-François Ponge, C. Bolzonella, D. Banas, M. De Nobili, S. Fusaro, L. Sella, R. Giannini
{"title":"Humusica: Soil biodiversity and global change","authors":"A. Zanella, Judith Ascher-Jenull, Jean-François Ponge, C. Bolzonella, D. Banas, M. De Nobili, S. Fusaro, L. Sella, R. Giannini","doi":"10.2478/bgeo-2018-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bgeo-2018-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Born in Trento (Italy, 2003) for the purpose of standardising vocabulary and units of humus form classification, after publishing a first synthetic classification e-book (Zanella et al. 2011) they do not cover all site conditions in the European area. Although having basic concepts and general lines, the European (and North American, Canadian, the Humus group decided to use its classification for handling global change (Zanella and Ascher-Jenull 2018). The process is detailed in many scientific articles published in three Special Issues (Humusica 1, 2 and 3) of the journal Applied Soil Ecology. Conceptually, the whole of Humusica answers three crucial questions: A) What is soil? Soil is a biological ecosystem. It recycles dead structures and implements mineral material, furnishing more or less re-elaborated organic, mineral and organic-mineral elements to support living organisms. Article chapters: 1. Essential vocabulary; 2. Soil covers all the Earth’s surfaces (soil as the seat of processes of organic matter storage and recycling); 3. Soil may be involved in the process of natural evolution (through organisms’ process of recycling biomass after death). B) If soil has a biogenic essence, how should it be classified to serve such managerial purposes as landscape exploitation or protection? A useful classification of soil should consider and propose useful references to biologically discriminate soil features. Article chapters: 4. Soil corresponds to a biogenic structure; 5. TerrHum, an App for classifying forest humipedons worldwide (a first attempt to use a smartphone as a field manual for humus form classification). C) How can this soil classification be used for handling the current global change? Using the collected knowledge about the biodiversity and functioning of natural (or semi-natural) soil for reconstructing the lost biodiversity/functioning of heavily exploited or degraded soils. Article chapters: 6. Agricultural soils correspond to simplified natural soils (comparison between natural and agricultural soils); 7. Organic waste and agricultural soils; 8. Is traditional agriculture economically sustainable? Comparing past traditional farm practices (in 1947) and contemporary intensive farm practices in the Venice province of Italy.","PeriodicalId":43256,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Geography-Physical Geography Series","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2018-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81764052","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Soil classification in Belarus: history and current problems","authors":"V. Tsyrybka, H. Ustsinava","doi":"10.2478/bgeo-2018-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bgeo-2018-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article contains a brief history of the development of the soil classification scheme of the Republic of Belarus. It comprises the description of the most widely-used (acknowledged) genetic classification of soils, characteristics of basic taxonomic units (type, subtype, sort, kind, and variation), and characteristics of the 13 main types of Belarusian soils. The map of the soil cover of Belarus and the morphological and genetic characteristics of typical and unique soil varieties are presented. The main problems of the national soil classification and its correlation with the international WRB system are shown.","PeriodicalId":43256,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Geography-Physical Geography Series","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2018-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76433208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Soils in the Slovenian educational system","authors":"Blaž Repe","doi":"10.2478/bgeo-2018-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bgeo-2018-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract There is a considerable amount of confusion in soil-related topics at all levels of Slovenian education. The fundamental problem is the use of the term “soil”. We use several different terms for more or less the same natural phenomenon. Other problems include the lack of an official Slovenian soil classification, the occasional use of out-of-date soil topics in primary and secondary education, the inexpert use of soil names for soil types of the World, and very few higher education soil specialisations. There are a lot of existing initiatives to improve the current state, but there are still a lot of obstacles impeding this process.","PeriodicalId":43256,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Geography-Physical Geography Series","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2018-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73149492","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The internet as a source of knowledge about soil cover of Poland","authors":"M. Świtoniak, Dawid Augustyniak, P. Charzyński","doi":"10.2478/bgeo-2018-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bgeo-2018-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The aim of this paper is to assess the quality and correctness of information on Polish soils available on selected websites. Particular attention was paid to educational portals, which became the subject of evaluation of the information its contains in terms of the correctness, up-to-dateness and reliability. Twenty-five websites representing educational portals and blogs were selected for analysis in terms of their contents (type of subject matter) correctness (substantial value), curentness (presence of up-to-date information) and completeness. Most of the information on the evaluated educational portals is targeted at high school students. These websites present only basic content. The most frequent issues on the analyzed portals were: soil types and soil systematics, distribution of soils in Poland, definition of soil and also soil valuation classes. Websites addressed to university students constitute a decided minority, could be said, that even an exception. One of those is article on Wikipedia, which has the highest educational value among all analysed websites.","PeriodicalId":43256,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Geography-Physical Geography Series","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2018-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88849090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A universal soil classification system from the perspective of the General Theory of Classification: a review","authors":"A. Nikiforova, M. Fleis","doi":"10.2478/bgeo-2018-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2478/bgeo-2018-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The paper addresses issues related to the application of the General Theory of Classification in the development of a universal soil classification system. The requirements for such a system, a comparison of different approaches to its development, and obstacles on the way to it are outlined. Additionally, the problem of the definition of soils and the importance of distinguishing between differentiating and diagnostic criteria are discussed. It is shown that, from the perspective of the General Theory of Classification, a universal soil classification system should be natural, genetic, “fundamental-and-specific”, and hierarchical. It is concluded that the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) does not meet these requirements and therefore cannot be considered as universal. Ways of addressing the problems of a universal soil classification system are suggested.","PeriodicalId":43256,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Geography-Physical Geography Series","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2018-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84266890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
J. Uscka-Kowalkowska, M. Posyniak, K. Markowicz, J. Podgórski
{"title":"Comparison of the Linke turbidity factor in Warsaw and in Belsk","authors":"J. Uscka-Kowalkowska, M. Posyniak, K. Markowicz, J. Podgórski","doi":"10.1515/bgeo-2017-0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bgeo-2017-0015","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The paper describes the relationship between direct solar radiation in a city (Warsaw) and in its broadly-defined suburban area (Belsk). The analysis covers the days of 1969-2003 when observations were carried out at both sites. The degree of extinction of solar radiation was expressed by means of Linke’s turbidity factor. Its mean annual value on the selected days of the period under consideration was 3.00± 0.10 in Warsaw and 2.87±0.11 in Belsk. Average atmospheric turbidity for individual seasons of the year as well as for the whole year was higher in Warsaw than in Belsk. In all cases, except for the summer, these differences were statistically significant. The period considered was divided into two sub-periods (1969-1993 and 1994-2003), in which atmospheric turbidity in Warsaw and in Belsk was compared by individual seasons and whole years. At both analysed sites Linke’s atmospheric turbidity factor decreased in 1994-2003, compared to the values for the earlier sub-period (1969-1993). However, the average annual atmospheric turbidity in Warsaw in comparison to Belsk remained the same, i.e. greater turbidity occurred in the city in both sub-periods.","PeriodicalId":43256,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Geography-Physical Geography Series","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2017-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76143610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The use of agricultural soils as a source of nitrous oxide emission in selected communes of Poland","authors":"P. Wiśniewski, M. Kistowski","doi":"10.1515/bgeo-2017-0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/bgeo-2017-0012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Nitrous oxide (N2O) is one of the main greenhouse gases, with a nearly 300 times greater potential to produce a greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide (CO2). Almost 80% of the annual emissions of this gas in Poland come from agriculture, and its main source is the use of agricultural soils. The study attempted to estimate the N2O emission from agricultural soils and to indicate its share in the total greenhouse gas emissions in 48 Polish communes. For this purpose, a simplified solution has been proposed which can be successfully applied by local government areas in order to assess nitrous oxide emissions, as well as to monitor the impact of actions undertaken to limit them. The estimated emission was compared with the results of the baseline greenhouse gas inventory prepared for the needs of the low-carbon economy plans adopted by the studied self-governments. This allowed us to determine the share of N2O emissions from agricultural soils in the total greenhouse gas emissions of the studied communes. The annual N2O emissions from agricultural soils in the studied communes range from 1.21 Mg N2O-N to 93.28 Mg N2O-N, and the cultivation of organic soils is its main source. The use of mineral and natural fertilisers, as well as indirect emissions from nitrogen leaching into groundwater and surface waters, are also significant. The results confirm the need to include greenhouse gas emissions from the use of agricultural soils and other agricultural sources in low-carbon economy plans.","PeriodicalId":43256,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin of Geography-Physical Geography Series","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2017-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86595210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}