Vernacular Systems


Vernacular systems are developed by the land users. Their structure is either
nominal, giving unique names to soils or landscapes, or descriptive, naming
soils by their characteristics such as red, hot, fat, or sandy. Soils are
distinguished by obvious characteristics, such as physical appearance (e.g.,
color, texture, landscape position), performance (e.g., production capability,
flooding), and accompanying vegetation. These distinctions are often based on
characteristics important to land management and largely they have been ignored
by the scientific community until recently, with anthropologists and geographers
being the first to document them. Vernacular systems can provide outsiders a
language to communicate with local land users, especially regarding agricultural
management and resource tenure. Vernacular systems can also provide technicians
and scientists insight into natural resource management systems that can prove
valuable in inventorying and developing local resources.

(Source: http://ag.arizona.edu/OALS/IALC/soils/classifsystems.html)

Ethnopedology, the term coined by Williams and Ortiz-Solorio (1981, p. 336),
is the study of these vernacular systems. The anthropologist Harold C. Conklin
first started documenting vernacular systems in the 1950s. Studies conducted by
the Office of Arid Lands Studies, University of Arizona, show that vernacular
systems in arid lands can be very detailed with comparable usefulness to
scientific systems (e.g., the Peul's system in Mauritania) or conversely may
have no pedologic usefulness (e.g., the Bedouin's system in Saudi Arabia which
implies that differences in soils are not perceived to be important to their
livelihood). In semi-arid California the vernacular system of Malibu encompasses
only one soil, the infamous "Malibu blue clay" (called Diablo soils under the
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), system) that limits building development
and reduces property values because septic-tank drainage-fields are not allowed
on that soil.

(Source: http://ag.arizona.edu/OALS/IALC/soils/classifsystems.html)