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Table 4.2 The qualities of a good classification or reference base (Gaucher
1977).
Natural basis
Behind every classification effort there is the desire, stated
or implied, to find natural entities or, if one prefers it so,
an existing order in nature
Exhaustiveness/
Should serve for grouping all the objects, here all the
universality
soils of the world
Discriminant nature
One should find more difference between the soils of two
taxa than between the various soils belonging to a
single taxon
Open structure
The classification of an object with fuzzy limits (soils, climates,
etc.) should permit inclusion of non-characteristic
individuals (intergrades, hybrids…)
Coherence and
The classification should be coherently and logically structured
rigour
in its different parts, so that grouping is facilitated
Practical nature
Should be usable without too much recourse to costly information
or that which is difficult to obtain. This has led to the
idea of giving priority to the morphological approach
Explanatory
A classification is not just a nomenclature (methodical
character
listing of objects described by appropriate qualifiers); if
possible it should serve to position the classified object in
relation to others and serve to understand its genesis
Utilitarian character
Although the classification has for objective the classification
of natural entities by themselves, it must enable other
applications: agronomy, environmental protection…
In 1988, a revision, corrected again in 1990, improved the system.
Modelled after the U.S. Soil Taxonomy, this second edition utilized the
idea of diagnostic horizons. But at the same time, a Working Group of
the International Society of Soil Science (ISSS) was formed in 1978 at the
International Congress at Edmonton, to construct a system permitting
correlations between national soil classification systems. This led to
publication of a document in 1982 titled International Reference Base . Later,
the views of the FAO and of the ISSS were brought closer, leading to a
first joint publication in 1994, described as a 'draft'. It was titled World
Reference Base (WRB). The first edition released was dated 1998 and the
second, 2006 (the Philadelphia Congress of the ISSS, which had become
IUSS, the U standing for Union). The WRB was embodied in various
reports (Bridges et al. 1998; Deckers et al. 1998; WRB 2006, with first ed.
in 1998). Progressively it looked like a new classification system. The
 
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