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Soil

Site: Moodle ZČU
Course: CBG/FGCRZ - Fyzická geografie ČR
Book: Soil
Printed by: Nepřihlášený host
Date: Sunday, 8 November 2026, 5:39 PM

Table of contents

1. Introduction

Soil is one of the fundamental components for supporting life on the planet. Soil can be defined as a mixture of rock particles, organic matter, air and water that occupies the uppermost few metres of the Earth’s crust.


Task:

Do you know what is soil made of? Do you know how does the soil profile look like? Do you know what is role and importance of soil? Do you know what are the soil forming processes?

If not, look in the Soil Atlas of Europe pages 10-17.

2. Types of the soil

Generally, the soil forming factors are parent rock, climate, vegetation, water, relief, time and human. In the territory of the Czech Republic, the altitude (which is basically climate) and diversity of the relief are the most significant factors in spatial diversity of soils. As regards soils, influence of oceanic climate is more distinct than the influence of continental climate. It means that the "humid" soil types (Luvisols, Cambisols) are more frequent than the continental soil types (e.g. Chernozems or Podzols).


They are many types of soil in the Czech Republic but the most abundant are Cambisols, Luvisols and Chernozems (see Fig. 1). Some of them are primarily used as a arable land (Chernozems and Luvisols), other are forest soils (Podzols).

type of soils
Fig. 1. Soil types according to the area covered.


The spatial distribution of some soil types is altitudinal or topographically related. It means that its abundance depends on the climate and climate depends on the altitude or their distribution is connected with a specific position in the relief (e.g. on the crest or in the valley).

Fig. 2. Altitudinal and topographical distribution of soil types in the Czech Republic (see alluvium, colluvium, eluvium).


3. Map of the soils

The soils of the Czech Republic comprises rich, black Chernozems and good-quality luvic Cambisols in the drier and  lower areas, Podzols in wetter regions and stony Leptosols at higher elevations. Fluvisols occur in the river basins and heavy Umbrisols are found in the mountains.


Fig. 1. Map of soil types.


Further reading:

Detailed soil maps of the Europe are presented here.

Detailed soil map of the Czech Republic is here or here (p. 134-135, p. 136 - description of soil types).