Main authors:	Gergely Tóth (Joint Research Centre), Xiaodong Song (Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Tamás Hermann (University of Pannonia), Brigitta Tóth (University of Pannonia)
Editor:	Jane Brandt
Source document:	Tóth, G.. et al. (2016) Hierarchical and multi-scale pedoclimatic zonation. iSQAPER Project Deliverable 2.1 125 pp

In this section of iSQAPERiS, we look at the different pedoclimatic zones in Europe. This information is used in other parts of iSQAPER  for optimizing land use for local climate and soil conditions.

We give details of the climate and soil data that we used and the methods for mapping the pedoclimatic zones;
»Data and methods used for delineating pedoclimatic zones

describe the features of the main soil groups;
»Main features of soils in pedoclimatic zones

and show the area covered by each soil group within each climate zone, together with the resultant map of the pedoclimatic zones in Europe.
»Pedoclimatic zones of Europe

Soil forms a continuum that comprises many biological, chemical and physical characteristics. A marked spatial and temporal variability of soil characteristics over climatic zones makes building pedoclimatic zonation difficult, even if we consider climatic zones to be distinct, which is not always the case in reality. In addition, there is a common opinion that different soil classifications result in different patterns of soil representation, namely different soil maps. Here we use the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB; FAO 1998). This system originates from the approach of the FAO to correlate soil resources globally.

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