Field guide and Horizon and Layer designations. Annexes 1 and 3 (submitted John Hollis, Allan Lilly and Bob Jones)

[StephanMantelISRIC]

Over the last 10 years, we have been involved with training courses sponsored by the British Society of Soil Science. These are part of an educational programme of short courses entitled ‘Working With Soils’, with our courses called ‘An introduction to Soil Classification’. This course focusses on the WRB system because, in the UK the classification systems used for soil mapping are slightly different in England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. WRB is thus the ideal system for harmonising these differences. The latest course was on July 18th & 19th and for this we had to update various aspects of the course modules to bring them in line with the latest 2022 version of WRB. In doing this, we developed some concerns about specific changes introduced in this edition.
Whilst we are pleased that the WRB 4th edition of 2022 has no major changes from the previous (2015) version, we have some specific concerns about some of the other changes introduced.

Our main concern is that Annexes 1 and 3, introduce yet another methodology for describing soil profiles in the field and another set of soil horizon nomenclature to add to the many existing national systems for description and nomenclature as well as the existing FAO ones. Most of the existing soil data gathered by national organisations is based on this published material. Whilst we can see that these two Annexes help with applying WRB to a profile description and analytical data based on them, in reality they are not absolutely necessary when classifying the soil according to the WRB, especially in the field. When teaching delegates/students about WRB, it is an unnecessary complication to cover a different set of horizon nomenclature and descriptive terms, to the ones used in their local/national systems. We therefore think that the two Annexes in question are an unnecessary, complicated and confusing addition to the WRB publication. This is especially the case as these annexes have been added at the expense of the very useful Annex 1 in the 2015 version. In our view this was a very important component of the previous WRB Handbooks which gave cogent summaries describing the characteristics, distribution, use and management of the Reference Groups, that proved popular with the delegates on our short courses. We strongly urge the committee to consider re-introducing this component into WRB 4th edition.

(submitted John Hollis, Allan Lilly and Bob Jones)

[StephanMantelISRIC]

Response by Cezary Kabala:
The new guidelines for soil description were necessary. Since the introduction of its previous versions (as FAO guidelines), several quantitative criteria in the WRB have changed, and the limits for particular classes in the guidelines disagreed with those in a classification. Moreover, many colleagues request for an international standard for soil horizon designation, at least for publishing in international journals and project reports (we cannot accept national symbols, e.g. Russian or Chinese, in Geoderma or Catena, because they differ drastically from those commonly used in Western Europe or USA, and thus are unclear and confusing for many researchers). Of course, when we started the discussion of the guidelines, plenty of new proposals have been submitted from societies, in particular to add new horizon designations. The largest problems we had were with the definition of the B horizon. We found huge differences in understanding/concepts of this horizon in the national classifications and opinions of colleagues. Similarly, the pedological sense of stagnic/gleyic phenomena and properties generated a huge discussion. I am sure that the discussion will escalate as people realise the new solution in Annex 1. I hope it will generate the critical analysis of the B-horizon concept published in any of international journals… For this edition, we decided to involve the guidelines for soil description in one book. But I think future WRB editions will be published separately from the field guidelines.

[StephanMantelISRIC]

Response John Hollis, Allan Lilly and Bob Jones:
We understand that the requests you have received to develop an ‘international standard’ for horizon designation have resulted in the introduction of Annexes 1 & 3. However, we always regarded the FAO soil description guidelines and associated horizon nomenclature as such a standard. Does FAO endorse the developments contained in Annexes 1 & 3 and, if so, why is there no acknowledgement of this?

[StephanMantelISRIC]

Response John Hollis, Allan Lilly and Bob Jones:
Finally, we would strongly support Cezary’s suggestion that the next version of WRB will probably keep current Annexes 1 & 3 as separate documents to the rest of the WRB publication. We would also urge the working group to add the very useful Annex 1 of the 2015 version a to the Annexes of the main document of the next version of WRB.

[StephanMantelISRIC]

Response by Cezary Kabala:
We love the old FAO Guidelines. However, the boundary limits for some important diagnostic features in FAO Guidelines have been in disagreement with boundaries applied in WRB classification (even in previous issues). People who strictly applied these limits, reported further troubles with soil classification. This is why the harmonization of soil description and classification rules was absolutely necessary. Of course, ultimately it should be issued as a new version of FAO Guidelines, but there was no time to consult it and publish it as an FAO book. But we agree that the Guidelines for soil description (agreed with the WRB) should be published as an FAO report/book.

We discussed a lot about the former Annex 1. But the preservation of the previous version was impossible, because the descriptions were outdated, unclear, misleading in some aspects etc. and therefore questioned by some colleagues. I agree that we should consider a return of the former Annex 1 in an improved form, if we decide to publish separately the guidelines for soil description.