Soils of Corrientes

Abstract

The Corrientes Province is located in the central part of the Argentinean Mesopotamia, bordered by the Paraná and Uruguay rivers. Extensive and gently rolling plains, waterlogged soils, wetlands, and lakes characterize its landscape. It is a complex ecosystem where the soil-forming factors affect their diverse natural regions in many different ways. As result of the diversity of pedogenetic factors and the variety of the parent materials in Corrientes, soil morphogenesis produced a unique combination of several soils. As a result, seven of the twelve USDA Soil Taxonomy Orders can be found in this province. In this chapter, climate, vegetation, parent materials, geomorphology, and soil—landscape relation- ships are described and discussed. On an area basis, Alfisols, Mollisols, and Entisols are the most abundant existing soil orders, covering more than 75% of the province surface, followed by Inceptisols, Vertisols, Ultisols, and Histosols. For better comprehension, com- mon features of representative landscape and soil profiles are described and illustrated.