Regosols
Encyclopedia
Fão
Fão is a town in Esposende Municipality in Portugal....
World Reference Base for Soil Resources
World Reference Base for Soil Resources
The World Reference Base for Soil Resources is the international standard taxonomic soil classification system endorsed by the International Union of Soil Sciences . It was developed by an international collaboration coordinated by the International Soil Reference and Information Centre and...
is very weakly developed mineral soil
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
in unconsolidated materials. Regosols are extensive in eroding lands
Erosion
Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
, in particular in arid
Arid
A region is said to be arid when it is characterized by a severe lack of available water, to the extent of hindering or even preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life...
and semi-arid
Semi-arid
A semi-arid climate or steppe climate describes climatic regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not extremely...
areas and in mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
regions. Internationally, Regosols correlate with soil taxa that are marked by incipient soil formation such as Entisols in the USDA soil taxonomy
USDA soil taxonomy
USDA Soil Taxonomy developed by United States Department of Agriculture and the National Cooperative Soil Survey provides an elaborate classification of soil types according to several parameters and in several levels: Order, Suborder, Great Group, Subgroup, Family, and Series.- Example of...
or skeletal soils in the Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n soil classification.
The group of Regosols is a taxonomic rest group containing all soils that could not be accommodated in any of the other groups. Excluded from the Regosols are weakly developed soils that classify as Leptosols
Leptosols
A Leptosol in the FAO World Reference Base for Soil Resources is a very shallow soil over hard rock or highly calcareous material or a deeper soil that is extremely gravelly and/or stony. Leptosols cover approximately 1.7 billion hectares of the Earth's surface. They are found from the tropics to...
(very shallow soils), Arenosols (sandy soils) or Fluvisols
Fluvisols
A Fluvisol in the FAO World Reference Base for Soil Resources is a genetically young soil in alluvial deposits . Apart from river sediments, they also occur in lacustrine and marine deposits....
(in recent alluvial deposits
Sediment
Sediment is naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of fluids such as wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particle itself....
. These soils have AC-profiles. Profile development is minimal as a consequence of young age and/or slow soil formation.
Land use and management of Regosols vary widely. Some Regosols are used for capital-intensive irrigated
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
farming but the most common land use is low volume grazing
Grazing
Grazing generally describes a type of feeding, in which a herbivore feeds on plants , and also on other multicellular autotrophs...
. Regosols in mountain areas are best left under forest
Forest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
.
Regosols occur in all climate zones without permafrost
Permafrost
In geology, permafrost, cryotic soil or permafrost soil is soil at or below the freezing point of water for two or more years. Ice is not always present, as may be in the case of nonporous bedrock, but it frequently occurs and it may be in amounts exceeding the potential hydraulic saturation of...
and at all elevations. Regosols are particularly common in arid areas, in the dry tropics and in mountain regions.
Regosols cover an estimated 260 million hectares worldwide, mainly in arid areas in the mid-western USA, Northern Africa, the Near East
Near East
The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Some 50 million hectares of Regosols occur in the wet/dry tropics, most especially in northern Australia, and another 36 million hectares in mountain areas.