Soil classifications: Their origin, the state-of-the-art and perspectives

The classification of soils originated from three main sources: from early empirical soil surveys, from folk soil classifications and from scientific theory of pedology. The first soil classifications reflected their origin in different extent, and still remain certain features of their initial sources. The actual situation in soil classification is discouraging, mainly due to the diversity of national soil classifications, extreme complexity of developed soil taxonomies and, as a result, to the loss of public interest in soil classification. Recently suggested roadmap to the Universal Soil Classification seems to be the main challenge in the recent history of soil classification.