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Water retention curve is the relationship between the water content, θ, and the soil water potential, ψ. The soil moisture curve is characteristic for different types of soil, and is also called the soil moisture characteristic. It is used to predict the soil water storage, water supply to the plants (field capacity) and soil aggregate stability.
Soil physics is the study of soil's physical properties and processes. It is applied to management and prediction under natural and managed ecosystems . Soil physics deals with the dynamics of physical soil components and their phases as solids , liquids , and gases .
The history of edaphology is not simple, as the two main alternative terms for soil science—pedology and edaphology—were initially poorly distinguished. [10] Friedrich Albert Fallou originally conceived pedology in the 19th century as a fundamental science separate from the applied science of agrology, [11] a predecessor term for edaphology, [12] a distinction retained in the current ...
Soil quality reflects how well a soil performs the functions of maintaining biodiversity and productivity, partitioning water and solute flow, filtering and buffering, nutrient cycling, and providing support for plants and other structures. Soil management has a major impact on soil quality. Soil quality relates to soil functions. Unlike water ...
Soil is used in agriculture, where it serves as the anchor and primary nutrient base for plants. The types of soil and available moisture determine the species of plants that can be cultivated. Agricultural soil science was the primeval domain of soil knowledge, long time before the advent of pedology in the 19th century.
A soil type is a taxonomic unit in soil science. All soils that share a certain set of well-defined properties form a distinctive soil type. [1] Soil type is a technical term of soil classification, the science that deals with the systematic categorization of soils. Every soil of the world belongs to a certain soil type. Soil type is an ...
The term comes from humus, which in turn comes from the Latin word humus, meaning "soil, earth". [1] Humic substances represent the major part of organic matter in soil , peat , coal , and sediments , and are important components of dissolved natural organic matter (NOM) in lakes (especially dystrophic lakes ), rivers, and sea water .
In 1982, the International Soil Science Society (ISSS; now: International Union of Soil Sciences, IUSS) established a working group named International Reference Base for Soil Classification (IRB). [3] Chair of this working group was Ernst Schlichting . Its mandate was to develop an international soil classification system that should better ...