Soils [Chapter 4.2]

Soils are crucial for profitable and sustainable biomass feedstock production. They provide nutrients and water, give support for plants, and provide habitat for enormous numbers of biota. There are several systems for soil classification. FAO has provided a generic classification system that was used for a global soil map (Bot et al., 2000). The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service has produced a world soils map based on the FAO system (Eswaran et al., 2003, Figure 4.1). An initiative of the Digital Soil Mapping Working Group of the International Union of Soil Sciences is moving forward with making a world digital soil map to assist decisions on food and energy production. Soils are extremely diverse due to the diversity of parent materials, climates, topography, and biota that act over time to produce what we know as soil (Jenny, 1941).