Definitions and Classifications of Soils and Lands and Their Reflection in Land Legislation

Abstract The paper demonstrates the backwardness of traditional land assessment in keeping up with modern land use intensification goals and the inconsistency of land legislation with environmental requirements. The concepts of land and soil do not have adequate definitions in legal aspect. A system for comprehensive assessment of agricultural lands based on the evaluation of their ecological and socioeconomic functions is proposed. The definition of soils should include their ecological functions. The environmental and economic (productive capacity) assessment of soils and soil-ecological regulation are carried out for elementary areas of the agricultural landscape, i.e., for agroecological types of lands. The basic soil classification is considered as a substantive (profile-genetic) system built in the system of landscape classification.