The catena
is a fundamental concept of pedology. It
ties the distribution of soils across slopes to important pedogeomorphic
processes. Milne introduced and
explained the term in the mid-1930's in three separate publications. These are a 1935 Soils Research article
titled “Some suggested units of classification and mapping, particularly for
East African soils,” a 1936 Nature article titled “Normal erosion as a factor
in soil profile development,” and a 1936 book titled “A Provisional Soil Map of
East Africa,” The impact and value of
the catena concept is nearly immeasurable with even a major interdisciplinary
journal being titled simply “Catena.”
The goal of this paper is to evaluate whether the catena concept still
fits Milne's original study sites in East Africa, specifically the upland
regions of western