Development of a Universal Soil Classification System.

In September 2009, in Hungary, several events were organized to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1st International Conference of Agrogeology. A symposium to overview the 100 years of advances in soil sciences and a seminar entitled “From the Dokuchaev School to Numerical Soil Classifications” were organized. As result of these discussions, a resolution (known as the “Godollo Resolution)” was prepared and forwarded to the IUSS Council for discussion at the 2010 World Congress of Soil Sciences in Brisbane, Australia. The resolution stated that there is a need to develop common standards, methods and terminology in soil observations and investigations and a universal soil classification system and for a new Working Group to coordinate the efforts of this global undertaking. Many of the scientists who participated in the wording of the “Godollo Resolution” had a formal meeting in May 2010 in Rome, Italy during “Digital Soil Mapping 2010” workshop. There was a general agreement that there is a need for evaluation of current spatial soil definition and classification systems and new innovative approaches should be investigated to develop a common universally accepted system. It was also agreed that a new working group should be set up to coordinate the work and that the development of a Universal Soil Classification (USC) may need several years, hence national systems and the official correlation system of IUSS, the WRB (World Reference Base for soil Resources) should be maintained. During the 2010 World Congress of Soil Sciences in Brisbane, Australia, the IUSS Council unanimously accepted the “Godollo Resolution” and formally accepted the proposal for a new Working Group to carry out the proposed investigations and development of common standards, methods and terminology in soil observations and investigations and a universal soil classification system.