Climate Change Impacts

Abstract

Soils form through the interaction of a number of influences, including climate, relief and/or landscape, parent material, organisms (including fauna, flora, and humans) and time. The nature of this interaction varies in different parts of the world, resulting in several thousand types of soil worldwide. It takes thousands of years for a soil to form, and most soils are still evolving as a result of changes in some of these soil-forming factors, particularly climate and vegetation, over the past few millennia. Changes in any of the soil-forming factors, such as climate, will impact directly and indirectly on current soils, with important implications for their development and use.