Soils of India: historical perspective, classification and recent advances

Derived from a wide range of rocks and minerals, a large variety of soils occur in the Indian subcontinent. Soil-forming factors like climate, vegetation and topography acting for varying periods on a range of rock formations and parent materials, have given rise to different kinds of soil. The National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Nagpur has developed a database on soils with field and laboratory studies over the last 30 years. This has generated maps and soil information at different scales, showing area and distribution of various soil groups in different agroecological subregions. The 1 : 250,000 scale map shows a threshold soil variation index of 4–5 and 10–25 soil families per m ha for alluvial plains and black soil regions respectively. Progress in basic and fundamental research in Indian soils has been reviewed in terms of soils, their formation related to climate, relief, organisms, parent materials and time.

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