INTRODUCTION

Soil:

Soil, commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic

matter, minerals, gasses, liquids, and organisms that together support
life. Soil is one of the principal substrata of life on Earth, serving as a
reservoir of water and nutrients, as a medium for the filtration and
breakdown of injurious wastes, and as a participant in the cycling of
carbon and other elements through the global ecosystem. It has evolved
through weathering processes driven by biological, climatic, geologic, and
topographic influences.

Types of soil:
The first scientific classification of soil was done by Vasily
Dokuchaev. In India, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research
(ICAR) has classified soils into 9 categories. They are:

1. Alluvial Soil
2. Red Soil
3. Black Soil
4. Laterite Soil
5. Mountain soil
6. Forest Soil
7. Alkaline Soil
8. Desert Soil
9. Peaty Soil

Alluvial Soil:

Alluvial soil has the highest productivity with respect to other

soils. It is present mostly along rivers and is carried by its
streams during weathering of rocks. The soil is generally covered
by tall grasses and forests, as well as a number of crops, such as
rice, wheat, sugarcane, tobacco, maize, cotton, soybean, jute,
oilseeds, fruits, vegetables, etc. This soil has very soft strata with
the lowest proportion of nitrogen and humus but with an adequate
amount of phosphate. There is a wide variation in the amount of
iron oxide and lime in different regions. Alluvial soil is one of the
best soils, requiring the least water due to its high porosity. The
consistency of alluvial soil ranges from drift sand and rich,
loamy soil to silty clays. India is one of the richest countries in the
world in terms of alluvial soil, which covers more than 46% of its
total land area.
The alluvial soil found in India, particularly in the Indo–Gangetic
plain, is of two types: khaddar (pale brown, sandy clays to loamy,
less calcareous and carbonaceous soil, and found in the low
areas of valley that are regularly flooded) and older Bhangar soils
(dark colored, mostly clayey, and containing lime nodules)

Most alluvial soils are derived from the sediment being deposited
by the river Ganga in the
Indo–Gangetic plain, ranging from Punjab in the west to West
Bengal and Assam in the east, as well as in the coastal areas of
northern parts of Gujarat, Narmada, and Tapi valleys, which are
formed by sea waves.

Alluvial soil is found in the valleys of the Terai region and in the
middle hill valleys around Kathmandu and Pokhara. The valleys
lie between the Siwalik and Mahabharat hills which widen out in
places to form flat fertile valleys called Dun valleys. Alluvial soil
is also found in the higher areas above the floodplain covering a
greater part of the Terai.

Red Soil:
Red soil is a type of soil that is characterized by its reddish
color. It is also known as Terra Rossa, which is Italian for
"red earth." Red soil is found in areas where the climate is
warm and humid, such as in tropical and subtropical regions.
Red soil contains a high percentage of iron content, which is
responsible for its color.

This soil is deficient in nitrogen, humus, phosphoric acid,

magnesium, and lime but fairly rich in potash, with its pH
ranging from neutral to acidic. It is formed by the weathering of
ancient crystalline and metamorphic rocks, particularly acid
granites and gneisses, quartzitic rocks, and feldspathic rocks.
Chemically, red soil is siliceous and aluminous, with free quartz
as sand, but is rich in potassium, ranging from sand to clay with
the majority being loamy. The lowermost area of red soil is dark
in color and very fertile, while the upper layer is sandy and
porous.

Red soil is often used for agriculture because it is fertile and

well-drained. It is especially beneficial for crops that require a lot
of nutrients, such as bananas and sugarcane. Red soil can also
be used to grow other types of crops, such as vegetables like
carrots, potatoes, celery, beets, spinach, beans, peas, corn and
fruits like oranges, pineapple and avocados. Red soil is used to
grow these crops because it has lots of nutrients needed for
plant growth, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. The
soil is also well-drained, which is important for agriculture.

Red soil is mostly loamy and hence cannot retain water like the
black soil. However, with the proper use of fertilizers and
irrigation techniques, red soil can give good yield of cotton,
wheat, rice, pulses, millets, tobacco, oil seeds, potatoes and
fruits.

Approximately 10.6% of the total geographical area of India is

covered by red soil, including Tamil Nadu, parts of Karnataka,
southeastern Maharashtra, eastern Andhra Pradesh and Madhya
Pradesh, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Chota Nagpur (Jharkhand), south
Bihar, West Bengal (Birbhum and Bankura), Uttar Pradesh
(Mirzapur, Jhansi, Banda, and Hamirpur), Aravallis, eastern
Rajasthan, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, and
Meghalaya.

Black Soil:

The black soils are also called regur (from the Telugu word
Reguda) and black cotton soils because cotton is the most
important crop grown on these soils. These soils have been formed
due to the solidification of lava spread over large areas during
volcanic activity in the Deccan Plateau, thousands of years ago.

Most of the black soils are derived from two types of rocks, the
Deccan and the Rajmahal trap, and ferruginous gneisses and
schists occurring in Tamil Nadu. The former are sufficiently
deep while the later are generally shallow.

In some parts of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, the origin of black

cotton soils is ascribed to old lagoons in which the rivers
deposited the materials brought down from the interior of
Peninsula covered with lava.

Geographically, black soils are spread over 5.46 lakh sq km (i.e.

16.6 per cent of the total geographical area of the country)
encompassing between 15°N to 25°N latitudes and 72°E to
82°E longitudes. This is the region of high temperature and low
rainfall. It is, therefore, a soil group of the dry and hot regions
of the Peninsula.

These soils are mainly found in Maharashtra, Madhya

Pradesh, parts of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and
Tamil Nadu.

The black color of these soils has been attributed by some scientists
to the presence of a small proportion of titaniferous magnetite or
even to iron and black constituents of the parent rock. The black
color of this soil may even be derived from crystalline schists and
basic gneisses such as in Tamil Nadu and parts of Andhra
Pradesh. Various tints of the black color such as deep black,
medium black, shallow black or even a mixture of red and black
may be found in this group of soils.
The black soil is very retentive of moisture. It swells greatly and
becomes sticky when wet in the rainy season. Under such
conditions, it is almost impossible to work on such soil because
the plough gets stuck in the mud.

However, in the hot dry season, the moisture evaporates, the soil
shrinks and is seamed with broad and deep cracks, often 10 to
15 cm wide and up to a meter deep. This permits oxygenation of
the soil to sufficient depths and the soil has extraordinary fertility.

Remarkably "self-plowed" by loosened particles fallen from the

ground into the cracks, the soil "swallows" itself and retains soil
moisture. This soil has been used for growing a variety of crops for
centuries without adding fertilizers and manures, or even fallowing
with little or no evidence of exhaustion.

A typical black soil is highly argillaceous with a large clay factor,

62 per cent or more, without gravel or coarse sand. It also
contains 10 percent of alumina, 9-10 percent of iron oxide and 6-
8 percent of lime and magnesium carbonates. Potash is variable
(less than 0.5 per cent) and phosphates, nitrogen and humus are
low. The structure is cloddish but occasionally friable.

In all regur soils in general, and in those derived from

ferromagnesian schists in particular, there is a layer rich in
kankar nodules formed by segregation of calcium carbonate at
lower depths. As a general rule, black soils of uplands are of low
fertility but they are darker, deeper and richer in the valleys.

Because of their high fertility and retentivity of moisture, the black

soils are widely used for producing several important crops.
Some of the major crops grown on the black soils are cotton,
wheat, jowar, linseed, Virginia tobacco, castor, sunflower and
millets. Rice and sugarcane are equally important where
irrigation facilities are available. Large varieties of vegetables and
fruits are also successfully grown on the black soils.
Laterite Soil:

Laterite is a porous, indurated concretionary material which is

usually red to reddish brown in color. The name ‘Laterite’ was
derived from the Latin word ‘Later’ which means ‘brick earth’.
The process of soil form takes place in alkaline medium. The
mineral silicates of the parent materials are completely broken
up and very little clay is formed. If any clay mineral is formed,
it is further decomposed into silica and sesquioxides. The
alkaline soil dissolves the silica and leaches out, leaving the
sesquioxides behind. As the alkaline earth bases are removed from
the seat form , the residual soil is acidic in reaction. Vegetation is
very profuse yet organic matter does not accumulate. The
decomposition of organic matter is rapid due to microbial activity
brought about by high precipitation and temperature. The organic
matter content of this soil is rich. This process of soil formation is
known as lateralization. The composition of the mineral part of
the soil depends on the drainage of the particular rock. Well
drained rocks yield Gibbsite and in case of iron deposition,
Goethite. Weakly drained rocks yield Kaolinite as well as
montmorillonite & mixed layered minerals. In the upper stratum
up to 1-4m , the content of these minerals decreases and that of
Kaolinite and Goethite increases, there is no gibbsite. All these
testifies to the important role played by drainage under tropical
conditions of soil form, providing for soils with clay minerals of
different composition.
Laterite soil occupies considerable tropical areas of Asia, Africa
and South America. True laterite soils cover 5000 sq. miles in
Sn. India. They elsewhere range from heavy loams to clay. In
Burma, laterite soils are also rare. Confined to intratropical
South Arakan 7 Tennaserium & laterite soil profile is rare above
150m latitude. Other (width 50 m clay) countries of Asia having
laterite soil are Malaysia and Indonesia. In the Congo, recent
tropical soils are related to active slopes around
eroding in Selber and sugar loaf features. A classification in
Ghana has gleys and peat as hydromorphic, Mangalitic and
podzolized soils as intra-zonal soils. In the Ivory coast , latitudinal
sequence of laterite is developed in Sudan and Senegal. In
Angola, laterite soils are rich in Kaolin and micaceous clays.
Laterite soils also occur in North Borneo and in Amazon lowlands
of South America. Dark latsols occur in humid areas or on base
rich rocks, red latosols in arid minerals and brown latsols in ash
basaltic terrain. Yellow forms are common in ill-drained areas,
while dark clayey Taljatele are Mangalitic.

Mountain soil:
The mountain soils are complex and extremely varied, they vary
from deep aluminum in the river basins and lower slopes to highly
immature residual gravel on higher altitudes.
In every mountain region, mountain soil constitutes the foundation
for agriculture, supporting ecosystem, function and food system.

Soil is a fragile resource that needs time to regenerate. Mountain

soils are particularly sustainable to climate change, deforestation,
unsustainable farming practices which affects fertility and
triggers land degradation which is multiplied and triggers land
degradation which is multiplied by disasters such as floods and
landslides.
Most mountain soils evolve slowly and are shallow because the
low temperature limits the biological activities of microorganisms,
soil genesis and evolution. Soil genesis is a term which refers to the
process of soil formation.

Mountain soil is generally defined as poorly developed, skeletal,

shallow and relatively infertile. They are also diverse and can
vary significantly in written limited areas due to different exposure
and steepness. In general, they become less fertile and less
developed as elevation increases.

Many plants, including crops have adapted to grow on mountain

soil and numerous are covered with vegetation, it has many
fundamental rolls. These can be either in the form of terrace
farming or contour plowing which controls erosion, which protects
the top soil from getting blown away with air, the slope and
altitude.

The mountain soils are generally located in dry and cold districts
like ladakh, himalayan region, sikkim, eastern ghats and
Sahyadri.

Crops like coffee, tea and wheat are supported by mountain soil.

Forest Soil:
Forest soil where soil formation has been influenced by forest
vegetation, generally rooted trees are present
Forest soil plays a broad, complex and interactive role within the
environment.
Soils have provided the foundation for trees and entire forests over
millions of years.

On the higher altitude of slope, texture becomes gritty, which is due

to diverse climatic and atmospheric conditions, while the soil on the
valley side is loamy and silty.

In himalayan region, snow covered areas, soils are depleted and

acidic, with minimal humus content as humus content gets washed
away due to snow melting.

In the lower valley region, the soil is fertile, particularly on river

trails and alluvial fans.
Best suitable for growing wheat, etc.
Alkaline Soil:

Alkali, or Alkaline soils are clay soils with high pH (greater than
8.5), a poor soil structure and a low infiltration capacity. Often
they have a hard calcareous layer at 0.5 to 1 meter depth. Alkali
soils owe their unfavorable physico-chemical properties mainly to
the dominating presence of sodium carbonate, which causes the soil
to swell and is difficult to clarify.

They derive their name from the alkali metal group of elements, to
which Sodium belongs, and which can induce basicity.

The natural cause is the presence of soil minerals producing

sodium carbonate(Na2c03) and sodium bicarbonate
(NaHCO3) upon weathering.
The man-made cause is the application of softened water in
irrigation (surface or groundwater) containing a relatively high
proportion of sodium bicarbonates and less calcium and
magnesium.

Soil alkalinity is associated with the presence of sodium carbonate

(Na2CO3) or sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) in the soil, either as a
result of natural weathering of the soil particles or brought in by
irrigation and/or flood water.

(i) This salt is extremely soluble, when it undergoes hydration, it

dissociates
in:
Na2CO3 → 2 Na+ +
CO2-3

(ii) The carbonate anion CO2-3, is a weak base accepting a

proton, so it is hydrolysed in water to give the bicarbonate ion
and a hydroxyl ion:
CO2-3 + H2O → HCO-3 +
OH

(ii) which in turn gives carbonic acid and

hydroxyl: HCO-3 + H2O → H2CO3 + OH

Alkaline soils with solid calcium carbonate can be reclaimed with

grass cultures, organic compost, waste hair/feathers, organic
garbage, waste paper, rejected lemons/oranges, etc. ensuring the
incorporation of much acidifying material (inorganic or organic
material) into the soil, and enhancing dissolved calcium in the field
water by releasing CO2 gas. Deep plowing and incorporating the
calcareous subsoil into the top soil also helps.

Plowing the field soon after cutting the crop is also advised to
prevent salt migration to the top soil and conserve the soil
moisture during the intense summer months. This is done to
break the capillary pores in the soil to prevent water reaching the
surface of the soil.

Desert Soil:
Desert soil is also known as Arid Soil. Desert soil is mostly sandy
soil (90–95%) found in low-rainfall regions. It has a low content
of nitrogen and organic matter with very high calcium carbonate
and phosphate, thus making it infertile. It ranges from red to
brown in color.

Desert soils can be classified into sub-tropical, tropical, semi arid,

coastal and polar soils.

Desert soil occurs in areas of the world that have very little
rainfall or an abundance of sand. Desert soils can be found in
subtropical states of the USA, such as Florida, in drier areas of
the middle eastern countries, or any major desert of the world
India has approximately 4% of total area covered with desert soil
in the regions of Rajasthan, adjoining areas of Punjab and
Haryana lying between the Indus and the Aravallis, the Rann of
Kachchh in Gujarat, and coastal regions of Orissa, Tamil Nadu,
and Kerala.

Soil horizons are the visible layers in soil that show when you
collect a profile. Soil profiles are vertical extractions from the
ground that include bits
of soil from all ranges of depth. Each visible layer is one of
the 6 soil horizons. These soil horizons give hints into the
desert soil formation.

The reasons for formation of this soil include:

1)Extreme diurnal temperature changes

2)Motion of winds
3)Root system of plants in arid regions

Desert soil characteristics, which generally apply to any type of

desert soil, include (but are not limited to) a mostly sandy soil
composition, very little moisture, and lack of nutrients.

Most arid soils are high in salt content. Salinization is the

accumulation of water-soluble salts in the soil to a level that
impacts on agricultural production, environmental health and
economic welfare. It causes increasing runoff and erosion.

Dunes are one of the most recognizable features in the desert.

Dunes form when the wind picks up sand and carries sand
across the desert until it accumulates into hills

There are very few times of the year in which rainwater

builds up enough to form a stream. The rest of the year, it
dries to create watercourses, which have steep sides and
jagged ravines in the ground that go through rocks.

Peaty Soil:

Peat soil, known as one of the most problematic soils in the

fields of civil and environmental engineering, is formed by the
accumulation and decomposition of organic materials
(derived from plant remains) under the waterlogged
environment where there is lack of oxygen. Based on the
degree of decomposition and fiber content, the peat can be
categorized into three types:

(1) fibrous peat

(2) hemic or semi fibrous peat

(3) sapric or amorphous peat

Peaty Soil formed in the region, having heavy rainfall with

high humidity that supported good growth of vegetation. It
accumulates in wetland ecosystems called peatlands or peat
bogs. These bogs are found throughout Russia, Scotland, and
Southeast Asia in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia
andIndia. The majority of peat soil in the United States
comes from peat bogs in Canada.

In India, It is found in the northern part of Bihar ,The southern

part of Uttarakhand, coastal areas of West Bengal ,Orissa
and Tamil Nadu. Peaty soil is formed naturally by incomplete
decomposition of organisms such as plants and animals in
wetland areas under low atmospheric temperature and
anaerobic conditions.

Peaty soil forms in regions having heavy rainfall with high

humidity that supports good growth of vegetation. As a result,
a high quantity of dead organisms' matter accumulated leads
to rich humus and organic content to soils; that is peaty soil.

Peaty soil is a storehouse of carbon; Globally, it is estimated

that peaty soil has more carbon as compared to carbon
accumulated in crude reserves.

It has rich humus and organic content. It is heavy and black

in colour. It is soft and easily compressible. It can be used as
fuel when dry. It is the storehouse of carbon and it is used as
a tool for carbon sequestration. During the decomposition of
organic materials, gelatinous humic acids are released to the
environment, which contain amorphous materials referred to
as organic colloids or humus.

The organic humus consists of a large quantity of acid

groups (mainly carboxyl groups of around 50% of total
functional groups).The pH values of the peat therefore reveal
high acidic conditions, and the lower bound has been
documented to have a pH of 1.5.

Peat soils generally have extremely high water content,

ranging from a few hundred percent to 2000% , and that
leads the soil to have vulnerable characteristics, such as high
compressibility, low shear strength, and low
permeabilityWeak skeleton: the major solid compound of the
peat is organic matter.
The extremely weak sponge-like skeleton of the organic
material (unlike inorganic minerals) does not provide
adequate strength and stability for infrastructure
developments.

High degrees of spatial and temporal variabilities are often

major hurdles when dealing with peat deposits. The spatial
variability is mainly attributed to different inherent
characteristics of plants and rate of decomposition.