Soil classification as a tool for contributing to sustainability at the landscape scale and forecasting impacts of management practices in agriculture and forestry

• Published in: Soil & tillage research Vol. 244; p. 106216
• Main Authors: Monger, Curtis, Michéli, Erika, Aburto, Felipe, Itkin, Danny
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.12.2024
• Subjects: bedrock; biodiversity; carbon; Chernozems; conservation tillage; Ecosystem services; ecosystems; Forest management; forestry; Genoform and phenoform; Hapludalfs; landscapes; Leptosols; limestone; loess; memory; Mollisols; Soil classification; soil degradation; soil quality; Sustainable agriculture and regenerative agriculture; vegetation; Sustainable agriculture and regenerative agriculture; Forest management; Ecosystem services; Soil classification; Genoform and phenoform
• ISSN: 0167-1987
• DOI: 10.1016/j.still.2024.106216

Industrial agriculture since the middle of the 20th century has provided bountiful food, but it has also altered and degraded soil physical, chemical, and biological properties on a continental scale. To combat this situation, sustainable agricultural practices are advocated, as well as retiring or “rewilding” some soils from agriculture and letting them revert to natural conditions for preserving biodiversity. Many scientific disciplines (biological, pedological, agricultural) are playing roles in sustainability. Soil classification can also play a role since its function is to group soil properties into soil types and create maps that show soil patterns across the landscape. In addition, classification is based largely on the genesis of diagnostic properties. Each diagnostic property has an evolutionary history resulting from factors → pedogenic processes → soil properties. Understanding a soil’s genesis not only enables us to understand what soils are today, and which ecosystem and soil health functions they perform, it also enables us to know what they were in the past based on chronosequences and soil memory, and what they will likely become in the future. If, for example, a residual soil shallow to limestone bedrock (e.g., Leptosols, or Lithic Hapludalfs) is plowed, remains uncovered by vegetation, and is allowed to erode to bedrock, it is neither sustainable nor regenerative. If, on the other hand, a soil with a mollic horizon (e.g., Chernozem or Mollisol) that formed in deep loess with no restrictive layers is allowed to erode causing it to lose carbon, moisture storage capacity, and favorable structure, it can regain its sustainability and become regenerative through proper management, such as cover crops and conservation tillage. Similar examples can be found for soils worldwide that illustrate the role classification can contribute to soil sustainability and regenerative capacity at the landscape scale. •Soil classification provides information about a soil’s quantitatively-defined properties.•Soil genesis provides information about a soil’s evolutionary history.•Combined, soil classification and genesis can be used for sustainable agricultural management.•Soil classification and genesis can also be used for sustainable forestry management.