Developments in soil and land evaluation
Abstract
Progress reportsDevelopments in soil and land evaluation SAGE Publications, Inc.1987DOI: 10.1177/030913338701100206 Stephen Nortcliff Department of Soil Science, University of Reading, UK The idea of the evaluation of soil and land is not recent for in the twelfth century Yahya Ibn Mohammed, writing in his compendium entitled The book of agriculture (quoted by Johnson, 1978), noted that 'the first step in agriculture is recognizing the soil and knowing how to differentiate between the good and the poor one'. The emphasis here and for the most part during the following 800 years has been on agriculture, and whilst this still forms a major component of current soil and land evaluation, the concern has broadened to include a whole range of non-agricultural environmental problems. This was highlighted during 1986 by the staging of two international meetings, which both focused attention on the broad aspects of soil and land quality. In June the International Standardization Organization held the first meeting of its Technical Committee on Soil Quality, which in addition to seeking to establish standardization in laboratory and testing methods, seeks to consider the classification of soil and soil quality. It is hoped that this form of standardization will allow more reliable