Towards a new framework for modeling the soil-landscape continuum

This paper provides a brief historical review of soil-geomorphological approaches to investigations of soil-landscape formation, and an outline of a methodological and conceptual appraoch for three-dimensional (3-D) modeling of the soil-landscape continuum that utilizes geographic information systems (GIS), spatial analysis and field data. Four interrelated, iterative stages are outlined: assembly and analysis of pertinent data to characterize a physiographic domain; geomorphometric characterization of the landscape from digital terrain models; georeferenced sampling as a basis for defining soil horizons, their attributes, and spatial arrangement in the landscape; and the basis structure of the model, providing insight into the range, variance, and correlation of soil and associated landform attributes, and the pedogeomorphic processes that formed the landscape. -from Authors