The soils we classify Essay review of recent publications on soil taxonomy

The year 1994 saw the publication of several important volumes on soil classification. The USDA Soil Conservation Service issued the sixth edition of its Keys to Soil Taxonomy, including significant changes in the Aridisol classification. At the 15th World Congress of Soil Science (WCSS) in Acapulco, Mexico, the new Draft World Reference Base for Soil Resources, published by ISSS/ISRIC/FAO, was distributed and discussed, with requests for further comments. The FAO/UNESCO Soil Map of the World — Revised Legend, frequently called the FAO soil classification scheme, has now been reprinted, with corrections, by ISRIC, Wageningen, as its Technical Paper 20. All these deserve attention by Catena readers and contributors. The brief reviews also touch upon some other points of interest, in particular deep weathering profiles and classification of paleosols. The concluding section gives recommendations how to handle soil classification, deep weathering profiles and paleosols in manuscripts.