Bulletin of Geography. Physical Geography Series, No. 14 (2018): 37–47 http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/bgeo-2018-0003 Soil classification in Belarus: history and current problems ISSN 2080-7686 Viktar Tsyrybka, Hanna Ustsinava Republican Scientific Subsidiary Unitary Enterprise, Republic of Belarus * Correspondence: Republican Scientific Subsidiary Unitary Enterprise, Institute For Soil Science And Agrochemistry. E-mail: [email protected] Abstract. The article contains a brief history of the development of the soil classification scheme of the Republic of Belarus. It comprises the description of the most widely-used (acknowledged) genet- ic classification of soils, characteristics of basic taxonomic units (type, subtype, sort, kind, and var- Key words: iation), and characteristics of the 13 main types of Belarusian soils. The map of the soil cover of taxonomic level, Belarus and the morphological and genetic characteristics of typical and unique soil varieties are pre- soil type, sented. The main problems of the national soil classification and its correlation with the internation- genetic approach, al WRB system are shown. WRB correlation Introduction works that require a scientifically grounded ap- proach to the use of the republic’s land resources. A more in-depth study of the republic’s soils, accom- Classification of soils is an indispensable tool for panied by the accumulation of data on the structure fundamental and applied research. Soil mapping, of the profiles, the statistical and dynamic composi- comparative characteristics of structure, texture and tion and properties, and their role in the functioning properties, quantitative and qualitative assessment, of soil systems, shows that the existing classification suitability for crops, all types of ameliorative im- scheme needs to be improved. Increased interna- pacts on soils and protection from degradation are tional cooperation between soil scientists leads to impossible without a detailed classification of the the need for correlation of the national soil classi- entire soil diversity with a mandatory set of clear fication scheme and the World Reference Base for diagnostic features for each soil classification. Soil Resources (WRB) (IUSS Working Group 2015). In the Republic of Belarus a genetic soil classifi- In many countries of Сentral and Eastern Eu- cation developed in 1980 is used, with some updates rope, correlations of the national soil classifica- (Smeyan 2003). State soil services, the Ministry of tion with WRB was made. In Poland (Kabała et al. Forestry, universities and technical schools use it 2016), Latvia (Karklins 2002), Romania (Secu et al. as a working and scientific instrument of soil-car- 2008), Hungary (Lang et al. 2013), Russian Feder- tographic, scientific-methodological and other ation (Krasilnikov 2002) articles have been pub- Bulletin of Geography. Physical Geography Series 2018. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- -NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 Nicolaus Copernicus University. All rights reserved. © 2018 De Gruyter Open (on-line). Soil classification in Belarus: history and current problems V. Tsyrybka, H. Ustsinava lished devoted to this problem. This indicates the formed as the result of human activity on different relevance of this soil classification. taxonomic levels. In this scheme, cultivated peat- bog soils were singled out on the type level and cul- tivated sod-podzolic on the lower level. The range The history of Belarusian soil classification of soils on the type level also includes sod-carbonate waterlogged and ancient alluvial soils, but the inter- im peat-bog soils (Smeyan and Solovey 1973) were Soil science as an academic discipline started devel- excluded from the classification. oping in Belarus only in the beginning of the 20th The classification published in 1974 was supple- century. mented with brown forest soils (Kulakovskaya et al. The problem of soil classification has always 1974). been one of the highest priority and the same time All the subsequent in-depth studies of Belaru- most widely discussed topics in soil sciences. The sian soils significantly clarified and supplemented first Belarusian works attempting soil classification the previous classifications. In 1980, on the basis of include publications in the 1920s and 30s, which those studies the new soil classification framework was when soil researches began on the territory of was developed (Smeyan 1980). It reflected natural the Republic of Belarus (Afanasyev 1997). Howev- and anthropogenic aspects of soil forming process- er, the first comparatively full scheme of Belarusian es and still remains relevant, taking into considera- soil classification was published in 1952 in the mon- tion the changes and additions made on the basis of ograph “Soils of the BSSR”, prepared by a group of studying anthropogenically-transformed soils in the authors under the editorship of I.S. Lupinovich and subsequent years. Based on the classification the no- P.P. Rogovoy (1952). Six types of soils were iden- menclature of soils of Belarus including 13 basic soil tified: sod, sod-podzolic, including waterlogged, types (see the Table 1) was created (Smeyan 2003). sod-bog, peaty-bog, and alluvial-meadow soils. Later, in 2006, a new classification of soils of Be- Sod-podzolic waterlogged include soils formed un- larus was developed. It encompasses all the varieties der the influence of podzolic, sod, and bog soil for- regardless of the degree of anthropogenic transfor- mation processes. mation, and specifies the new taxonomic units, i.e. Classification schemes of that period suggest that a branch, a class, a subclass (Smeyan and Tsytron the most common soils on the territory of the Bela- 2006). Branches are identified according to the de- rus were the podzolic and sod-podzolic ones (var- gree of anthropogenic influence, classes according ying by degree of podsolisation, humidity, type of to type of hydromorphism, and subclasses accord- structure of parent materials and soil texture), and ing to soil formation process. In this classification also podzolic waterlogged, peat bog, humus-car- there are 52 types of soils: 18 natural ones (soils bonate and alluvial soils (Kulakovskaya et al. 1974). of natural lands), 17 natural-anthropogenic (mead- The Belarusian soil classification developed by ow lands) and 17 anthropogenic-transformed (ar- A.G. Medvedev, N.P. Bulgakov and Y.I Gavrilenko able and technogenically-degraded lands). Despite published in 1960 already possessed the full struc- the positive assessment of this classification by Rus- ture of hierarchical levels lower than a type (type, sian scientists (Dobrovolsky and Zaidelman 2008), subtype, sort, kind and variation). According to it was not accepted by most scientists and special- this classification worked out based on the mate- ists in Belarus. rial of the first round of large-scale soil research- In 2016, a new “natural” classification of soils es, the following seven soil types were identified on of Belarus was proposed (Romanova and Berkov the territory of Belarus: sod-carbonate, sod-podzol- 2016). It is an index and digital classification which ic, sod-podzolic waterlogged, sod waterlogged, peat singles out eight taxonomic levels which describe bog, alluvial sod waterlogged and alluvial peat bog in detail all the soil properties: class of hydromor- (Medvedev et al. 1960). phism, type of soil forming process, degree of soil In “The guidelines for large-scale soil-geobotan- moistening, soil texture and lithology, content of ical and agrochemical researches” the classification physical clay, presence of peat, mineralogical struc- from 1960 was supplemented with the soils trans- ture of parent materials, groundwater chemistry, bo- 38 Citation: Bulletin of Geography. Physical Geography Series 2018, 14, http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/bgeo-2018-0003 V. Tsyrybka, H. Ustsinava Soil classification in Belarus: history and current problems Table 1. Types and subtypes of soils in Belarusian soil classification (1980) No Soil type Soil subtype Typical 1 Sod-carbonate Leached Podzolised 2 Brown forest Residual carbonate 3 Podzolic Podzolic Sod-podzolic 4 Sod-podzolic Sod-podzolic eroded Sod-podzolic cultivated 5 Podzolic waterlogged Podzolic waterlogged Surface-gleyed Sod-podzolic Ground-gleyed 6 waterlogged Surface-gleyed drained Ground-gleyed drained Peaty-podzolic-gleyed 7 Bog-podzolic Peaty-podzolic gleyed drained Surface-gleyed Ground-gleyed 8 Sod waterlogged Surface-gleyed drained Ground-gleyed drained Peat gley Peat 9 Peat-bog (ground water) Peat-gley drained Peat drained Peat gley Peat-bog Peat 10 (water from atmospheric precipitations) Peat-gley drained Peat drained Undeveloped Podzolised 11 Alluvial sod and sod waterlogged Gleyed Gleyed drained Silt-humic-gleyed Silt-peat-gleyed Silt-peat 12 Alluvial boggy Silt-humus-gleyed drained Silt-peat-gleyed drained Silt-peat drained Recultivated Anthropogenically degraded 13 Anthropogenically transformed Anthropogenically disturbed Anthropogenically saline Secondary-waterlogged Citation: Bulletin of Geography. Physical Geography Series 2018, 14, http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/bgeo-2018-0003 39 Soil classification in Belarus: history and current problems V. Tsyrybka, H. Ustsinava tanical structure of peat, presence of the processes Genetic soils