Soil Science and Land Evaluation

When designers from cool climates work on humid tropical sites, they don't understand how to make buildings comfortable without artificial conditioning.

When building designers work to develop a site in a rural area, they need a checklist of soil conditions that could mean trouble.

When design students in the developing world learn how to plan, they need examples of excellent design from warm climate projects that represent natural  issues of tropical regions.

When npos plan buildings in the developing world, they may not have access to landscape architects, civil engineers, or architects. Building designers willing to take some time can find out a lot about site planning.

This paper provides a practical introduction to site and building planning as well as cultural issues and worldwide hazard maps.

The study was conducted to find out the variation in physical and chemical properties of fadama soils along a toposequence proximal to River Donga, Northeast Nigeria. Three mapping units were identified as crest, mid-slope and foot-slope. In each mapping unit, a profile pit was dug and soil samples were collected based on horizon differentiation. These soil samples were subjected to laboratory analyses using standard procedures. Data collected were analyzed statistically using analyses of variance and coefficient of variation. The particle size distribution showed the preponderance of sand followed by clay though clay increased down the profile. The soil is acidic with pH range of 5.02 to 6.66. Organic carbon recorded mean of 10.75 mg kg-1 , 9.03 mg kg-1 and 7.06 mg kg-1 for soils under crest, mid-slope and foot-slope, respectively. Silt, pH and C:N recorded low variation in all the mapping units whereas clay and total nitrogen recorded high variation. The toposequence considered have an influence on nutrient addition and enrichment. The soil can be very productive under good management with emphasis on restriction/controlled grazing activities.

The paper presents the method and the actions carried out for the definition of thesoil mapping units of the Soil Map of Romania at the scale 1: 200,000 (SMR-200) using anextended terminology of the international soil classification system WRB (World ReferenceBase for Soil Resources 2006, update 2007):(1) Developing a" Notation" for a formalised definition of the SMR-200 Legend;(2) Transposing the original definitions (in Romanian natural language) of the soilmapping units (SMU) of the SMR-200 Legend into ...

The paper presents the method and the actions carried out for the definition of thesoil mapping units of the Soil Map of Romania at the scale 1: 200,000 (SMR-200) using anextended terminology of the international soil classification system WRB (World ReferenceBase for Soil Resources 2006, update 2007):(1) Developing a" Notation" for a formalised definition of the SMR-200 Legend;(2) Transposing the original definitions (in Romanian natural language) of the soilmapping units (SMU) of the SMR-200 Legend into ...

"""The paper presents the method and the actions carried out for the definition of the soil mapping units of the Soil Map of Romania at the scale 1:200,000 (SMR-200) using an extended terminology of the international soil classification system WRB (World Reference Base for Soil Resources 2006, update 2007):
(1) Developing a "Notation" for a formalised definition of the SMR-200 Legend;
(2) Transposing the original definitions (in Romanian natural language) of the soil mapping units (SMU) of the SMR-200 Legend into formalised (not ambiguous) definitions using the "Notation";
(3) Analysing the differences between the WRB system and the Romanian system of soil classification 1980, "SRCS", used in the original definition of the SMR-200 Legend, and establishing the SMU "translation" method;
(4) Developing certain "translation dictionaries" to transpose the SRCS definition of the soil horizons, soil types, soil subtypes and low-level (taxonomic) soil characteristics and complementary attributes into the standard WRB terms, modified WRB terms and/or new-defined WRB-like terms (all together named "SRCS-extended WRB" system) aiming at an accuracy of translation as good as possible;
(5) Developing a computer program and translating the formalised definitions of the SMUs of the SMR-200 into the "SRCS-extended WRB" terminology, using that computer program and the translation dictionaries;
(6) Finalising the WRB definition of the SMUs of the SMR-200, by expert reviews of the computer translation and by expert integration of the "SRCS-extended WRB" definitions at the SMU level.
Summaries of the definitions of the "SRCS-extended WRB" terms are presented."""