Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Luo, Alpine meadow, Podzols, Purplish, and Phospho-calcic soils. For the national soil inventory,
many soil maps at scales from 1:50,000 to 1:250,000 were compiled, in addition to national ones
at scales of 1:4 million and 1:10 million. All were based on the existing genetic soil classiÝcation
system. Thus the school of genetic classiÝcation has inÞuenced Chinese thinking and will continue
to do so.
Genetic classiÝcation is generally based on the soil-forming hypotheses, and the relationships
are usually only qualitative. Consequently, people may classify the same soil into different soil
groups with different understanding of genesis. In 1959, Albic bleached soils were classiÝed as
Podzols because of confusion about the spodic and bleaching processes. Genetic classiÝcation
tended to emphasize bio-climatic conditions but ignored the time factor, and consequently there
was sometimes confusion about which process was to be used for classiÝcation of a particular
group of soils. For example, this permitted the Purplish soils to be mistakenly classiÝed as Yellow
soils. Most genetic classiÝcations have described well the central concept of a soil group, but often
there are not well-deÝned boundaries between soil groups. It is often difÝcult to properly place a
soil, and the classiÝcation is ambiguous. The lack of quantitative criteria made it difÝcult to establish
an information system or to develop an automated system of classiÝcation.
Taxonomic Soil Classification
In 1960, American soil scientists, in cooperation with others, created a classiÝcation system
later to be known as Soil Taxonomy. It took 10 years and was revised seven times, based on the
research results around the world. During that time, research on soil classiÝcation in China was at
a standstill for 10 years. When the Chinese soil delegation took part in the 12
International Soil
Science Society World Soil Congress, they were astonished that it was so difÝcult to exchange
ideas with other soil scientists because of misunderstandings about Soil Taxonomy and the World
Soil Map Legend, which were being widely used throughout the world. Consequently, Chinese soil
scientists began to introduce ideas from abroad about progress in soil classiÝcation. To facilitate
our understanding, important publications such as,
th
Keys to Soil Taxonomy
,
Rationale for Concepts
in Soil Taxonomy
, and
Comments on International Soil ClassiÝcation
were translated and published
in Chinese.
In order to Ýll the gap, since 1984 the Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
has led a research group on Chinese Soil Taxonomic ClassiÝcation. This collaborative effort
comprises a number of researchers from more than 30 universities or institutions in the country.
In 1985, China began research on a soil taxonomic classiÝcation. As mentioned above, Chinese
Soil Taxonomic ClassiÝcation (First proposal), the Chinese Soil Taxonomic ClassiÝcation (Revised
proposal), and Keys to Chinese Soil Taxonomic ClassiÝcation (3
Edition) were successively
published in 1991, 1995, and 2001. Meanwhile, a comprehensive monograph of Chinese Soil
Taxonomic ClassiÝcationÐTheory/Method/PracticeÐwas published in 1999. But all of these pub-
lications are in Chinese only. In 1994, an English draft version of Chinese soil taxonomic classi-
Ýcation was edited and distributed in some international meetings (Gong, 1994) and was used for
soil study (ISSAS and ISRIC, 1995). The Chinese Soil Taxonomic ClassiÝcation (Revised proposal)
was fully translated and published in Japanese. Chinese Soil Taxonomy was published in English
in 2001. Meanwhile this classiÝcation was introduced in detail by
rd
Handbook of Soil Science
(Sumner, 2000) and
(1999) in Russian.
The classiÝcation of Anthrosols in Chinese Soil Taxonomic ClassiÝcation has been adopted as
the classiÝcation of Anthrosols in World Reference Base for Soil Resources. In the last 10 years
there have been more than 400 papers published in different journals and proceedings, not only in
Chinese but also in English, Japanese, French, and Russian. Thus the classiÝcation became more
acceptable both in China and abroad.
Soil Terminology and Correlation
