Participation of Soviet Scientists in the Soil Map of the World Project

 
PIIS020596060013159-6-1
DOI10.31857/S020596060013159-6
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
Affiliation:
S. I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian State University for the Humanities
Address: Ul. Baltiyskaya, 14, Moscow, 125315, Russia; Miusskaya ploshchad, 6, Moscow, 125047, Russia
Journal nameVoprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki
EditionVolume 43 Issue 1
Pages41-53
Abstract

 This article discusses the participation of Soviet soil scientists in the project aimed to create a soil map of the world. The ideas of creating a soil map were based on the ideas of soil classification that had been put forward by V. V. Dokuchaev in the late 19th century. These ideas were further developed by Dokuchaev’s pupil K. D. Glinka who greatly influenced the relevant works of C. F. Marbut, the leader of American soil science. In the Soviet Union, the creation of soil maps was initiated in the early 1930s for the purpose of land and soil inventory, which was necessary to ensure successful development of the collective-farm economy. With their vast experience in soil mapping, Soviet soil scientists initiated a project to create a world soil map at the Sixth International Congress of Soil Scientists, held in Paris in 1956. The first soil maps of individual regions, presented during the ICSS Congress in Madison in 1960, were seriously flawed and could not be integrated into a single map. The International Society of Soil Science asked the U. N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for help and, together with UNESCO, FAO began to provide assistance in the implementation of this project. The Soviet scientists’ positions in the project were undermined in 1961 after the V. V. Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute was removed from under the auspices of the USSR Academy of Sciences and transferred to the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL). Only a few scientists from the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geography, headed by I. P. Gerasimov, remained full participants in World Soil Map Project. In this situation V. A. Kovda, who directed the project on the Soviet side, concentrated on defending the positions of Soviet soil science from the encroachments on the part of American scientists. There was a risk that traditional Russian soil names could disappear from the new soil map of the world. Soviet scientists succeeded in defending their position at the International Soil Congress, held in Adelaide (Australia) in 1968, and secured the holding of the next Congress in Moscow. The first sheets of the soil map of the world were released in 1970.

Keywordshistory of soil science, soil maps, international soil congresses, V. V. Dokuchaev, J. G. Lipman, C. F. Marbut, K. D. Glinka, K. K. Gedroits, V. A. Kovda, I. P. Gerasimov
Received19.05.2021
Publication date28.03.2022
Number of characters25448
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