Soil classifications

The Belgian soil classification system consists of a soil type that corresponds to one of the 3 classification types: general, coastal zone and artificial soils classification. The soil type of the general Belgian soil classification is made up of various components such as a substrate, texture class, drainage class, profile development group, phases and variants. This morphogenetic classification system could not be applied in the coastal region, as the soils in this region show no profile development. As a result, a separate Belgian classification system is used for the coastal region. Also for soil profiles with a strong human disturbance, artificial soils, there is a separate classification system within Belgium. In addition to the Belgian soil classification systems, the international World Reference Base (WRB) soil classification is also used. The WRB system uses Reference Soil Groups (RSGs), Principal Qualifiers (PQs) and Supplementatry Qualfiers (SPs). In addition to the Belgian soil classification system and the WRB classification, the database also contains other soil classifications referred to as additional soil classifications with, among other things, the soil classifications according to the Pottery system. The Pottery classification is a precursor of the Belgian soil classification and was only applied in the early years of the Belgian soil mapping.