Guideline for describing soil profiles in mountain ecosystems

Abstract

This guideline for describing soil profiles in mountainous ecosystems is intended to provide scientists around the world with other than soil science expertise to collect useful soil data such as soil profile descriptions and soil sampling. From the collected soil profile descriptions the scientists should be able to calculate important parameters such as field capacities. In addition, the main objective of this guideline is to streamline methods for soil data collection in mountainous terrain throughout the world, which would result in comparable soil data. The field book Schoeneberger et al. (2002) is recommended as basis for the guideline. This manual was used providing a minimum data set for descripting soil profiles in mountainous areas. Before describing a soil profile a representative site should be selected. A representative site is defined by the objective of the study. This could consist of parameters such as vegetation communities, microtopography etc. Only those parameters have to be considered, which are essential for a minimum data set. We tried to focus on the specific site conditions in mountainous areas with great heterogeneity in many ways and added special recommendations for their description and sampling. We focussed on those soil parameters, which are necessary to investigate ecological processes, like interactions between plants and soil. In this manual we do not consider genetic purposes. Interpretation of pedogenesis as well as soil mapping should be done in cooperation with soil scientists only. In connection with soil profile description some data, e. g. texture and slope gradient, are collected, which are necessary for erosion risk assessment. Examples of soil profile descriptions in alpine areas of Europe and Asia are given in order to improve the clarity of the guideline. © 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.