Anthrosol

An anthrosol (or anthropogenic soil) in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB)[1] is a type of soil that has been formed or heavily modified due to long-term human activity, such as from irrigation, addition of organic waste or wet-field cultivation used to create paddy fields.[2]

a soil profile of terra preta
A soil profile of terra preta, an anthrosol found in the Amazon Basin.[3]

Such soils can be formed from any parent soil, and are commonly found in areas where agriculture has been practiced for centuries. Anthrosols can be found worldwide, though they tend to have different soil horizons in different regions. For example, in northwestern Europe anthrosols commonly have plaggic or terric (strongly affected by manure) horizons, and together they cover some 500,000 hectares.

Due to the broad range of anthrosol compositions and structures compared to other soils of the same order of classification, there is debate on whether anthrosol should be included as an independent soil group.[4]

  1. ^ IUSS Working Group WRB (2022). "World Reference Base for Soil Resources, fourth edition" (PDF). International Union of Soil Sciences, Vienna.
  2. ^ Major Soils of the World. ISRIC, Wageningen, The Netherlands. 2001{
  3. ^ Lehmann, Johannes; Kern, Dirse C.; Glaser, Bruno; Woods, William I. (2007-05-08). Amazonian Dark Earths: Origin Properties Management. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-1-4020-2597-6.
  4. ^ Scudder, S. J.; Foss, J. E.; Collins, M. E. (1996), Sparks, Donald L. (ed.), Soil Science and Archaeology, Advances in Agronomy, vol. 57, Academic Press, pp. 1–76, doi:10.1016/s0065-2113(08)60922-0, ISBN 9780120007578