Soil and soil protection

Introduction

Soil is an integral component of the natural environment. It is strongly enlaced with other subjects of protection as water, air and the living nature. Consequently it deserves the same degree of attention. To take care for soil issues unfortunately is still not as self-evident as for other environmentally sensitive subjects. Only in the last few years soil protection has become a statutory purpose.

Soil in a closer sense is defined as the uppermost layer of the earths crust in its property as environmental medium, as a carrier of geogenic potentials as well as area of impact for processes or mass transfer or biogeochemical processes.

The assessment of all natural functions and potentials of soil implies a sufficient knowledge of its structural composition, its properties and its actual state. Which soils can be found in Saxony and what is their chemical and physical character?

To answer these questions the Saxon State Agency of Environment and Geology is collecting countrywide information on soil and is implementing this information in a nationwide identical systematic order (pedologic mapping guide, 4th edition). Interested parties can recall the information digitally or analogue.

foto: Profiling in the field

foto: soil profile – brown soil