Urban soils classification for Russian cities of the taiga zone

Urban soils are formed under the combined influence of natural and anthropogenic factors. The latter are determined by specific land use practices in the urban environment. The first Russia classification of soils and soil-like bodies within a town was proposed by Stroganova et. al. (1997-1999). In this paper we distinguish and describe two new groups of urban soils 3"urbanozems" which are opened urban soils and "ekranozems" which are urban soils sealed by road surfaces). Soils of towns comprise natural (undisturbed) and human-transformed soils, which are further subdivided into surface-transformed, and deeply transformed soils. There are also human-made, or technogenic, soil-like bodies-technozems. The urbic diagnostic horizon is an individual horizon with individual features and to be chearacterized by the pedogenetic agents responsible for its properties, as well as by the processes inherent to this horizon. The Urbic horizon is considered as a diagnostic one for the majority of urban soils and a criterion to differentiate urban soils from natural soils.