Konzeption und Inhalt der Karte „Böden“ 1:750 000 im „Atlas DDR“

Summary

This article explains the conception, scientific basis, content, and cartographic design of the 1:750,000 map “Soils” in the Atlas of the German Democratic Republic. Intended to replace older nationwide representations, the map synthesizes extensive advances in soil survey, classification, soil genesis, and soil geography, while responding to the practical requirements of intensified agriculture, forestry, land improvement, and rational land-resource management. It was derived from a collaborative 1:500,000 soil map prepared by regional pedologists throughout the GDR. Its classification framework is based on “soil forms,” which combine genetically determined horizon sequences with lithological and sedimentological substrate profiles and thereby integrate pedogenic and lithogenic characteristics through reproducible diagnostic criteria. Because an overview map cannot depict individual elementary soil areas, polypedons, or pedotopes, its principal mapping units are soil associations and their spatial equivalents, termed pedochores. Pedochores are heterogeneous but systematically organized complexes of pedotopes, distinguished by their soil-genetic components and characteristic spatial linkage patterns. Their organization reflects regular variations in parent material, relief, water and heat regimes, vegetation, duration of soil formation, and technogenic intervention. Each mapping unit is characterized chiefly by its inventory of soil forms, especially dominant and recurrent accompanying forms, as well as by soil catenas, distribution patterns, substrate composition, and the degree of pedoecological contrast. Large-scale surveys at 1:10,000 to 1:50,000—covering about 45 percent of the GDR and including particularly important forestry site investigations—provided the empirical foundation. Patterns identified in surveyed representative areas were extrapolated cautiously to less thoroughly mapped regions. The legend organizes soil associations first according to the genetic status and contemporary dynamics of their dominant soils and then according to prevailing substrates, ranging from sandy through silty-loamy to clayey materials. Cartographic colors indicate major genetic, dynamic, and ecological properties; differences in brightness refine these distinctions, while colored structural screens express similarities and contrasts in substrate structure and parent rock. This design reveals major soil regions, including the chernozem zone, the loess-belt region dominated by lessivated soils and stagnic soils, altitudinal zonation in the central uplands, and the differentiation of the Pleistocene lowlands according to glacial sediments, periglacial modification, drainage networks, and climatic gradients. The authors emphasize that mapping precision remains spatially uneven: some areas permit representation of micro-pedochores, whereas elsewhere only broader groupings or distribution zones can be shown. The map therefore records the state of knowledge at the time of compilation and should be refined through subsequent soil-geographical research and medium-scale agricultural site mapping. Nevertheless, it already served as a fundamental data source for evaluating soil-cover heterogeneity, crop suitability, mechanized production, agricultural ecological site types, and the broader classification of natural landscape regions in the GDR.