LAUSR

Abstract Many different soil classification systems exist around the world and soil profile descriptions have always been difficult to successfully translate between taxonomic systems. In order to do this, there is the requirement for a comprehensive soil classification. This database needs to be comprehensive, non-duplicated, have the capacity for other suitable taxa to be added to, and at the same time to be small and simple. In this paper, we proposed a nearest-neighbour distance calculated based on the principal component space of the soil variables to remove redundancy of the existing soil classification and evaluate the equivalence between the different soil classification system. After removing the redundancy, Great Groups of the New Zealand Classification and Australian Soil Classification and Soil Groups of the World Reference Base for Soil Resources were sequentially added to the Great Groups of the US Soil Taxonomy. This resulted in a comprehensive soil classification. The comprehensive soil classification allowed for the further addition of taxa from other soil classification and was capable of robustly allocating unknown soil profiles via either hard or fuzzy classification methods. The possibility merging and simplifying of such different systems demonstrates the possibility of similar mergers with taxonomies of other nations, creating a fully populated taxonomic space – a truly global or universal soil classification system.