Soil Resources Department

Main areas of scientific activity

• Diagnosis and classification of soils.
• Soil mapping.
• Assessment of soil fertility.
• Zoning of the soil cover.
• Parameterization of soil-ecological relations.
• Assessing the suitability of soils for organic farming.

The most important research results

• Genetic ecological and substantive classification of soils of Ukraine on a parametric basis
• Parametric diagnostics of the above typical level of soil classification
• Parametric relationships between the content of physical clay and the gross chemical composition of soils
• Methodology of large-scale soil survey of Ukraine
• Maps "Soils of Ukraine" (1:1,430,000); "Soils of the Kherson region, ecological resources and normative productivity of agricultural crops" (1:200,000)
• System of evaluation of agro-production qualities of soils according to agro-soil potentials of natural and effective fertility
• Natural phosphorus content in soils depending on their genesis
• Natural mechanism for protecting slope soils from water erosion
• Soil and ecological zoning of Ukraine
• Zoning of soils of Ukraine according to suitability for organic farming.

Main achievements in international activities

• implementation of an international project ordered by FAO: “Reconciliation the national system of soil classifiers with WRB 2014” (2020-2022), as well as the continuation of the project for 2023. Within the framework of the projects:
• the methodology was developed and the Guidelines for harmonizing the Reconciliation the national system of soil classifiers with WRB 2014/2022 were prepared;
• a database of soil profiles was created for the National System for Monitoring the Neutral Level of Land Degradation;
• digital soil maps of scale 1:200000 were created for Kharkiv, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions.
• mapping the state of reclaimed lands of the Ingulets irrigation system and Bilozerska Hromada according to a set of indicators within the framework of the USAID Program for Agricultural and Rural Development (AGRO)
• creation of a digital network map of black soils of Ukraine, as a component of the FAO GBSmap - Global Black Soil Distribution Map (2022);
• creation of a digital network map of saline soils of Ukraine, as a component of the FAO GSSmap (2021);
• creation of a database of soil profiles for the Ukrainian part of the Danube basin according to the e-SOTER methodology (EU project, 2019-2021);
• creation of a digital network map of organic carbon stocks in the soils of Ukraine, as a component of the GSOCMap (2017);
• participation in the FAO training seminar on saline soil management for 12 countries of the Eurasian region (2017);

Experts of the Department are participants in numerous international events and trainings on modeling and mapping of soil properties.

Vitalii LEBED - NSC ISSAR official representative in INSII (International Network of Soil Information Institutions), Soil Database Expert;

Yurii ZALAVSKYI - Expert in Digital Mapping in INSAS (International Network on Salt-affected Soils)