Soils in Urban Areas

Abstract

Engineers, landscape architects, horticulturalists and others concerned with urban soil usually recognize three types, topsoil, subsoil and no soil. The extremes of texture, heavy clay and sand may also be acknowledged. This simplistic classification is a result of the almost total lack of interest shown by the Soil Survey of England and Wales who spend most of their time collecting information on agricultural land. True, one of the 10 major groups they recognize is ‘man-made soils’ defined as ‘soils with a thick man-made A horizon, a disturbed subsurface layer, or both,’ but they possess little information on this category. Despite this, the soil survey’s publications are always worth consulting for background information especially in cases where urbanization has spread over agricultural land already mapped.