Changes in diagnostics and qualifiers (e.g. hyperskeletic and Chernic), submitted by Jeroen Schoorl

[StephanMantelISRIC]

A few months ago, I found the release of the new version WRB 2022. As a “yearly consumer” in both research and education, e.g. many European soils in the excursions Germany-Luxemburg – France, and the Field Training Geosciences database (Spain) with over 2500 profile descriptions, I was a bit surprised over some of the changes that have been incorporated from the 2015 to the 2022 version.

• My first question is how are these decisions made (and maybe also why) in diagnostic criteria and also qualifiers?
• Secondly, why are these not more elaborated and addressed specifically in the introduction Chapter? I now had to discover them “by accident” while discussing and classifying soils (in Spain) of which I thought I knew the classifications and qualifiers! (The new depth criteria in Chernic and the disappearance of the Hyperskeletic are just 2 examples which have quite a large impact in our Spain Field Training area)
• And any chance that some of the changes can be proposed to the WRB to change them back, depending on the reasons that these have been changed anyway?

I just finished updating the 2500 soils Spain database with the WRB 2015 versions last year within a BSc thesis topic !! So all that work seems for nothing …

Submitted by Jeroen Schoorl