Geopedology: An Integration of Geomorphology and Pedology for Soil and Landscape Studies

572 Pages·2023·26.228 MB·English

Joseph Alfred Zinck
Graciela Metternicht
Héctor Francisco del Valle
Marcos Angelini   Editors
Geopedology
An Integration of Geomorphology and
Pedology for Soil and Landscape Studies
Second Edition
Geopedology
Joseph Alfred Zinck • Graciela Metternicht
Héctor Francisco del Valle • Marcos Angelini
Editors
Geopedology
An Integration of Geomorphology
and Pedology for Soil and Landscape Studies
Second Edition
Editors
Joseph Alfred Zinck (deceased) Graciela Metternicht
Faculty of Geo-Information Science School of Science
and Earth Observation (ITC) Western Sydney University
University of Twente Richmond, NSW, Australia
Enschede, The Netherlands
Marcos Angelini
Héctor Francisco del Valle Instituto de Suelos
Facultad de Ciencia y Tecnología (FCyT) National Agricultural Technology Institute
Centre. Centro Regional de Geomática Buenos Aires, Argentina
Universidad Autónoma de Entre
Ríos (UADER)
Paraná-Oro Verde, Entre Rios, Argentina
ISBN 978-3-031-20666-5 ISBN 978-3-031-20667-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20667-2
1st edition: © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
2nd edition: © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2023
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In Memoriam

Joseph Alfred Zinck (1938–2021) embodied the true nature of an educator.
Education has two different Latin roots: educare, which means to train or to mould,
and educere, meaning to lead out. Alfred mastered both meanings. He was gifted at
passing on knowledge (many ITC alumni may remember his lecture notes on
“Physiography and Soils” that taught the foundations of the geopedological
approach to understanding soil-landscape relationships), and through his mentor-
ship and supervision, he trained a new generation of researchers, teaching them how
to question, think critically, and create solutions to problems known and not yet
known, bringing the best out of each individual that he supervised or mentored over
the many years he devoted to the profession of educator and researcher.
Prof. (em.) Dr. Joseph Alfred Zinck was a soil scientist with a BSc in geography
(1960) and an MSc in phytosociology-pedology (1962) from the University of
Strasbourg (France) and a doctoral degree in regional planning (1981) from the
University of Bordeaux (France). He started and developed his professional career
in Venezuela as an expert in technical cooperation of the French Government, work-
ing with the Ministry of Public Works (1965–1977) and with the Ministry of
Environment and Natural Resources (1977–1981) in soil survey and land use plan-
ning projects. During his time in Venezuela, he was also part-time lecturer in post-
graduate programs of the Central University of Venezuela (Caracas and Maracay).
From 1986 until his retirement in 2003, he was full Professor of Soil Survey at
the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC)
v
vi In Memoriam
in Enschede (the Netherlands), and for a couple of years he headed the Soil Science
Division. He also was a gifted writer (in Spanish, French, and English), publishing
166 papers, 20 soil survey reports, and 10 books.
This second version of the book Geopedology began under his leadership, and
sadly we lost him halfway through the project. Therefore, this book is dedicated to
his memory, and we intend it to be a testimony of his legacy as an outstanding sci-
entist, human being, and educator.
Dean of Science G. I. Metternicht
Western Sydney University
Richmond, Australia
August 2022
Foreword
Bringing Geopedology to a New Generation
In summer 1997, when I accepted a position as Senior University Lecturer in
Professor Alfred Zinck’s chair group at the International Institute of Aerospace
Survey & Earth Observation (“ITC”) in Enschede (NL), now a faculty of the
University of Twente, I had only a vague idea of geopedology. Of the formative ele-
ments, I had a clear idea: “geo” from geography, geology, geomorphology, and
“pedology” from my formation at Cornell with Marlin Cline (BSc) and Armand Van
Wambeke (PhD), but what did this neologism mean, precisely? I knew that Alfred
had developed a systematic approach to the integration of “geo” and “pedology”
during his time at the Ministerio de Obras Públicas (MOP), later the Ministerio del
Ambiente y de los Recursos Naturales (MARNR) in Venezuela from 1965 to 1981.
I worked at the MARNR for 2 years in the early 1990s and was exposed to Alfred’s
publications, most notably his groundbreaking analysis with Pedro Urriola of the
Río Guaraphiche (Zinck and Urriola 1971), and to maps made with the geopedo-
logic method. However, by this time, the concepts had been somewhat diluted and
transformed into a set of steps, without the deep understanding of landscape forma-
tion implicit in geopedology.
Once at ITC, I was thrown into teaching soil classification, soil survey interpreta-
tion, and land evaluation, while Alfred and Abbas Farshad taught geopedology,
using the lecture notes “Physiography and Soils,” ITC Lecture Note SOL.4.1, from
1988, along with a set of airphoto interpretation exercises. These are still available
online.1 I carefully studied these notes, and was attracted by the systematic hierar-
chical approach, quite different from the haphazard approach of “look at the
landscape and try to see where the soil forming factors have been effective” and
then “try to delineate areas with more or less the same set of factors and results” in
which I had been trained, well-described by Hudson (1992). Certainly, in the USA,
the close relation of geomorphology and pedology had been studied and explained
1 https://webapps.itc.utwente.nl/librarywww/papers_1989/tech/zinck_phy.pdf
vii
viii Foreword
by, among others, Ruhe and Daniels (Daniels and Gamble 1978; Daniels et al. 1978,
1999; Ruhe et al. 1967). These were detailed studies aiming at the elucidation of the
distribution of mappable soil series over the landscape. By contrast, Alfred’s system
covered the entire range of scales from continental to local in a systematic hierarchi-
cal legend, revealing relations with soil formation at all levels. Another key point of
geopedology was the explicit link to the hierarchy soil taxonomy.
Yet there was no easily available reference to which I could refer colleagues. I
prodded Alfred about this, since I could see that his system had wide applicability
as well as its interesting conceptual basis. Alfred presented the outlines in his inau-
gural address “Soil survey: Epistemology of a vital discipline,” (Zinck 1990) later
published in the ITC Journal, but not the details of the system. After his retirement,
he found time to codify his previous work and in 2013 presented it in the ITC
Special Lecture Notes Series as “Geopedology: Elements of geomorphology for
soil and geohazard studies,” (Zinck 2013) and in Spanish (2012) (Zinck 2012) as
“Geopedología: Elementos de geomorfología para estudios de suelos y de riesgos
naturales.” Still, this was somewhat difficult to find, and it did not cover the wide
range of applications related to the geopedologic approach.
Therefore, the plans for the first edition of the present book with contributions
from many of Alfred’s former students and colleagues as well as expanded explana-
tions from Alfred. This was published in 2015. Finally, we had a book from a com-
mercial publisher (Springer) with which to explain the concepts of geopedology and
its many applications. The subtitle “An Integration of Geomorphology and Pedology
for Soil and Landscape Studies” was accurate as far as it goes but does not suggest
the deep concepts developed by Alfred to effect this integration.
In the meantime, so-called “digital soil mapping” (DSM) has fairly conquered
most of the soil mapping activity; the seminal paper of McBratney et al. (2003)
announced this transition, and the increasing computer power, development of
machine learning methods, and increasing number of environmental covariates have
accelerated the transition. Although most DSM methods rely on geomorphometry,
i.e., measurements of the landform, they ignore geomorphology, i.e., the systematic
understanding of landforms and their evolution, and of course their tight relation
expressed by geopedology. At the same time, traditional soil survey based on land-
scape analysis and theories of soil formation practically stopped in most areas of the
world. That is, the conceptual basis of soil survey is ever less taught and applied.
It is in this intellectual and operational environment that it is vital to re-introduce
the conceptual model of soil geography provided by geopedology to the current
generation of soil mappers and pedologists. There have been some efforts to inte-
grate traditional soil surveyor’s conceptual knowledge into DSM (e.g., Bui et al.
2020), but these are few when compared to the deluge of machine learning empiri-
cal models based on large sets of covariates. The recent “10 challenges for the future
of pedometrics” (Wadoux et al. 2021) includes “Challenge 6: Can we incorporate
mechanistic pedological knowledge in digital soil mapping?” However, this is
focused on models of soil formation and landscape evolution, not on geomorphol-
ogy. What is missing is the systematic description of the landscape on which soils
form, and the soil distribution that results. This is exactly the task of geopedology.
Foreword ix
I hope that this second edition of Prof. Zinck’s final contribution to science will be
widely read and will provoke the new generation to think in terms of landscapes.
Even better, perhaps it will provoke them to leave the computer and go outside and
see for themselves.
Department of Crop & Soil Sciences D. G. Rossiter
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY, USA
References
Bui EN, Searle RD, Wilson PR, et al (2020) Soil surveyor knowledge in digital soil mapping and
assessment in Australia. Geoderma Reg. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geodrs.2020.e00299
Daniels RB, Gamble EE (1978) Relations between stratigraphy, geomorphology and
soils in Coastal Plain areas of Southeastern U.S.A.  Geoderma 21:41–65. https://doi.
org/10.1016/0016- 7061(78)90004- 6
Daniels RB, Gamble EE, Wheeler WH (1978) Age of soil landscapes in the Coastal Plain
of North Carolina. Soil Sci Soc Am J 42:98–105. https://doi.org/10.2136/sssaj197
8.03615995004200010022x
Daniels RB, Buol SW, Kleiss HJ, Ditzler CA (1999) Soil systems in North Carolina. North
Carolina State University, Soil Science Dept, Raleigh
Hudson BD (1992) The soil survey as paradigm-based science. Soil Science Society of America
Journal 56:836–841. https://doi.org/0.2136/sssaj1992.03615995005600030027x
McBratney AB, Mendonça Santos ML, Minasny B (2003) On digital soil mapping. Geoderma
117:3–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016- 7061(03)00223- 4
Ruhe RV, Daniels RB, Cady JG (1967) Landscape evolution and soil formation in southwestern
Iowa. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC.
Wadoux AMJ-C, Heuvelink GBM, Lark RM, et al (2021) Ten challenges for the future of pedo-
metrics. Geoderma 401:115155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2021.115155
Zinck JA (1990) Soil survey: epistemology of a vital discipline. ITC J 4:335–351
Zinck JA (2012) Geopedología: Elementos de geomorfología para estudios de suelos y de ries-
gos naturales, p 131 [ITC Special Lecture Notes Series]. Faculty of Geo-information Sciences
and Earth Observation, University of Twente. http://www.itc.nl/library/papers_2012/general/
zinck_geopedologia_2012.pdf
Zinck JA (2013) Geopedology: elements of geomorphology for soil and geohazard studies,
pp 127 [ITC Special Lecture Notes Series]. Faculty of Geo-information Sciences and Earth
Observation, University of Twente. https://webapps.itc.utwente.nl/librarywww/papers_2013/
general/zinck_geopedology_2013.pdf
Zinck A, Urriola P (1971) Estudio edafológico del valle del Río Guarapiche, Estado Monagas.
Ministerio de Obras Públicas, Caracas
Contents
Part I Foundations of Geopedology
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
J. A. Zinck, G. Metternicht, H. F. del Valle, and M. Angelini
2 Theoretical Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
J. A. Zinck
3 Relationships Between Geomorphology and Pedology:
Brief Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
J. A. Zinck
4 The Geopedologic Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
J. A. Zinck
5 The Pedologic Landscape: Organization of the Soil Material . . . . . . 69
J. A. Zinck
6 The Geomorphic Landscape: Criteria for
Classifying Geoforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
J. A. Zinck
7 The Geomorphic Landscape: Classification of Geoforms . . . . . . . . . . 107
J. A. Zinck
8 The Geomorphic Landscape: The Attributes of Geoforms . . . . . . . . . 133
J. A. Zinck
Part II Approaches to Soil-Landscape Pattern Analysis
9 Knowledge Is Power: Where Digital Soil Mapping
Needs Geopedology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
D. G. Rossiter
xi