Pedologist

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In recent years, the major international soil classification systems have been revised to classify or to explain soils of anthropized environment. Definitions of the soil great group, names of master horizons and descriptions of the soils were newly developed in the revision process. However, differences in concept of “human impact on soil” and its implication for pedogenesis make it difficult to translate the soil between the classification systems. To recognize the soils affected by human activity in each classification system, concepts for human activities and artefacts in soil classification were discussed by comparison between soil classification systems, i.e.

World Reference Base for Soil Resources and Keys to Soil Taxonomy, and soil classification systems of Japan. As a consequence, the three classification systems can explain the anthropized soils with accompanied information relating to anthropogenic activities. However, a name of an anthropized soil according to each classification system cannot be translated using another classification system because of difference in key-out levels between three classifications. Again, it will be recommended to reconsider the concept and the key-out level of the anthropized soils for translation between three soil classification systems.

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