The multidisciplinary origin of soil geography: A review

Abstract

Soil geography should be clearly recognized as a sub-discipline of physical geography and soil science, but at various times over the last century it was accepted as a complementary and descriptive sub-discipline of botany, agronomy and geology. In other words, there was not a clear consensus about its definition and origins. The main goal of this paper is to conduct a historical review (s. XX-XXI) of soil geography to clarify its origin, early methods, first authors and the importance of its interdisciplinary perspective within the scientific community. We found that soil geography was considerably advanced by the work of K.D. Glinka (1867–1927), one of Dokuchaev's students, who could be considered as the father of soil geography. Following the scientific line of Glinka, C.F. Marbut (1863–1935) could be considered one of the first world-reknown soil geographers. During the 1900s, this discipline continued to develop with research conducted by scientists including Kellogg, Simonson, Kubiëna, Huguet del Villar, Fitzpatrick, Duchaufour, Stremme, Zinck and entities such as USDA, FAO-UNESCO and CSIRO.