Great Soil Landscapes of France | Marcel Jamagne

First national synthesis on soil, an essential component of our environment, this book presents all the knowledge on the main soil resources of metropolitan France. The data include the essence of the inventory, mapping, and associated research work on soils, especially those carried out as part of the "Soil Map of France" survey, scientifically coordinated by the National Institute of Agronomic Research. The distribution, properties, and functioning of the main soils in the major physiographic and pedological domains of the territory - sedimentary basins, ancient massifs, recent chains, and Mediterranean regions - as well as their pedogenetic evolution are described. Different types of sequences and soil systems distinguished within watersheds of varying sizes have thus been inventoried. Abundantly illustrated with diagrams, excerpts from explanatory maps showing the distribution of soils, and numerous photographs integrated into the associated CD-ROM, this book also includes the correlation between the French taxonomy used (Soil Reference System) and the international reference system World Reference Base for soil resources (WRB). The new, structured, and landscape-oriented presentation of the dominant soils in France, indicating the keys to understanding their distribution, makes this book an essential reference at various levels of soil knowledge: research, education, management, and conservation of natural spaces.