Fig. 5.2 A view of sandy desert landscape presenting Entisols soil order covering 30% of surveyed area in Kuwait

5.2.2 Entisols

In US Soil Taxonomy (Soil Survey Staff 2014), Entisols is one of the twelve soil orders, defined as soils that do not show any profile development other than an A horizon. All deep sandy soils (sand sheets, sand dunes) without any development are classified under Entisols. The Entisols has no diagnostic horizons (calcic, gypsic, salic, petrocalcic, petrogypsic etc.), and the parent material is unaltered. The Entisols are the most abundant soil order, occupying about 16% of the global ice-free land area (Fig. 5.2).

5.3Understanding Soil Taxonomic Classes

It is mandatory that the user of this chapter for the identification of soil taxa to be well familiar with the definitions of master horizons, diagnostic horizons, and the terms defined in the Soil Survey Manual (Soil Science Division Staff 2017) and the Field Book for Describing and Sampling Soils (Schoeneberger et al. 2012).