Agricultural Science (AS)·Soil · NSSCAS 2.5
Soil zones of Namibia
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Why can a farmer beside the Orange River grow grapes and lucerne under irrigation, while a farmer out in the Kalahari sand can barely keep a crop alive on the very same rain? The answer is not the farmer, and it is not the seed — it is the soil beneath their feet. In this lesson we open the atlas of Namibia, learn the nine dominant soils and where each one lies, and then look closely at how arenosols, cambisols and fluvisols form and how good each one really is for farming.
What you'll learn in this lesson
By the end you should be able to (NSSCAS Agricultural Science (AS) 2.5):
- Explain what a soil zone is and why Namibia's soils differ from place to place
- Use the atlas map of Namibia to identify the distribution of the nine dominant soils: arenosols, calcisols, cambisols, fluvisols, gypsisols, leptosols, regosols, solonchaks and solonetzes
- State roughly where each of the nine dominant soils is found across Namibia
- Describe how arenosols are formed as deep, wind-deposited sands
- Describe how cambisols are formed as young soils with early horizon development from weathering
- Describe how fluvisols are formed from river-deposited alluvium
- Compare the fertility and water-holding of arenosols, cambisols and fluvisols
- Compare the agricultural potential of arenosols, cambisols and fluvisols and state the best use of each
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