Soil heritage

The development of a soil profile is usually a process of thousands of years under specific conditions. Just think of the influence of the parent material, the substrate, the climate, the geomorphology and hydrology, the fauna and flora, and man. In this way, a soil profile reflects the natural and cultural history of a particular location. Decoupled from any use function, a soil can be considered valuable from a scientific or social point of view. Preserving and protecting the existing valuable soils in Flanders is important for the preservation of our soil heritage. In this context, Ghent University, the K.U. Leuven and the Soil Service of Belgium carried out an exploratory study commissioned by the Land and Soil Protection Service. Ghent University, the K.U. Leuven and the Soil Service of Belgium combined their knowledge in the creation of a database of the known valuable soils in Flanders. In this inventory, not only written sources were consulted, but also the so-called ‘grey knowledge’ (unpublished) was included. For the study of written sources, libraries were visited, both public and private collections, and books, articles, theses, proceedings, monographs and reports were consulted. The ‘grey knowledge’ was made available through interviews with experts. The data layer shows the location of the known valuable soils in Flanders and contains a link for each location to the corresponding information sheet, which was extracted from the database.