LANDMARKS OF HISTORY OF SOIL SCIENCE IN SRI LANKA

R.B. Mapa*
Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture
University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT

Sri Lanka is a tropical Island in the Indian Ocean consisting of a land area of 6.5 million
ha with a population of 19 million. The country was under colonial rule from 1505 to
1948. The majority of the people in the past and present earn their living from activities
based on land, which indicates the important of the soil resource. The objective of this
paper is to explore the landmarks of the history of Soil Science, specially the soil survey
and mapping work, to highlight the achievements and failures, which is useful to enrich
our present understanding of Sri Lankan soils.

The landmarks of the history of Soil Science in Sri Lanka can be divided to three
phases namely, the early period (prior to 1956), the middle period (1956 to 1972) and the
present period (from 1972). During the early period, detailed analytical studies of coffee
and tea soils were compiled, and these gave mainly information on up-country soils of the
Island and led to fertilizer recommendations for these two crops based on field trials. In
addition rice and forest soils were also studied in less detail. The first classification of Sri
Lnakan soils and a provisional map was published by Joachim in 1945 which is a major
landmark of history of Soil Science in Sri Lanka. During this period valuable information
on the land resource was collected by aerial resource surveys from a Canada-Ceylon
Colombo plan aid project. This covered 18 major river basins and about 1/4th of the
island, which resulted in producing an excellent soil map and information of the areas
called the Kelani Aruvi Ara and Walawe basin. The provisional soil map was updated by
many other workers in 1961 and 1972 using this information.

During the present era, the need for classification of Soils of Sri Lanka according to
international methods was felt. A major leap forward in Soil Survey, Classification and
development of a soil data base was initiated in 1995 with the commencement of the
“SRICANSOL” project which was a twining project between the Soil Science Societies of
Sri Lanka and Canada. This project is now completed with detail soil maps at a scale of
1:250,000 and soil classified according to international methods for the Wet,
Intermediate and Dry zones of Sri Lanka. A digital database consisting of soil profile
description and physical and chemical data is under preparation for 28, 40 and 51
benchmark sites of the Wet, Intermediate and Dry zones respectively. The emphases on
studies on Soil Science in the country at present is more towards environmental
conservation related to soil erosion control, reducing of pollution of soil and water
bodies from nitrates, pesticide residues and heavy metal accumulation.
Key words: Sri Lanka, Provisional soil map,
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*R,B. Mapa is presently working as the Professor of Soil Science at University of
Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and worked as the team leader in the SRICANSOL project.
 INTRODUCTION

Sri Lanka, which was called Ceylon prior to 1972, is a tropical Island in the Indian ocean
found at a latitude of 50 54’ to 90 52’ N and longitude of 790 39’ to 810 53’ E. The
country was under colonial rule from 1505 to 1948 where it was a British overseas
territory for the longest period. Sri Lanka consists of a total land area of 6.5 million ha
with a present population of 19 million. The country has two distinct topographical
features: a central highland rising above 2500 m above MSL and the lowland plains
surrounding it extending to the coastal region. The climate is tropical and maritime, with
two distinct monsoonal seasons. The southwest monsoon is experienced during May to
September (called yala season) and the northeast monsoon during October to January
(called maha season). Based on the rainfall pattern, three major zones are identified as the
Wet zone (mean annual rainfall more than 2500 mm), Intermediate zone (1750-2500 mm)
and the Dry zone (less than 1750 mm). The wettest part of the country receives a mean
annual rainfall of 3175 while the driest part receives about 500 mm. Using the rainfall
and elevation, the country is presently divided to 46 agro-ecological regions.

Most of the people in the past and present earn their living from land-based activities
showing the importance of the soil resource. From the 6.5 million ha of land in the
country, only about 3 million ha is arable due to internal water bodies, reservations and
unsuitable terrain. With the present population of 19 million, the arable per capita land
area is estimated as 0.15 ha indicating heavy pressure on agricultural land (Madduma
Bandara, 2000). This will reduce further with the increase of population and land
degradation.

Even though Sri Lanka was under British rule for more than 100 years, the early soil
survey work was not conducted by expatriate staff as in other territories but pioneered by
local Soil Scientists as Dr. A.W.R. Joachim, who is considered as the father of Soil
Science in Sri Lanka. He worked as the Director of Department of Agriculture and the
Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka, and was the founder president of the Soil Science
Society of Sri Lanka which was formed in 1969.

The objective of this paper is to explore the landmarks of the history of Soil Science in
Sri Lanka, specially the soil survey and mapping work, to highlight the achievements and
failures, which is useful to enrich our present understanding of soils and lead future
research directions.

LANDMARKS OF HISTORY OF SOIL SCIENCE

The historical development of Soil Science and its salient features could be described
broadly under three periods, as Early Period (prior to 1956), the middle period (1956 to
1972) and the present period. Published (Panabokke, 1996; Dassanayake and Senarath,
1999) and unpublished/personnel communications were used to obtain the information
documented in this paper. The important feature of soil survey and classification work
carried during these periods is that Sri Lankan soil scientists followed the internationally
developed methods and criteria available during the given period.

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Early Period (Prior to 1956)

The first documented evidence on soil studies of Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) was conducted
by Huges (1887) and published as “Ceylon Coffee soils and Manures” during the time
coffee was introduced to Sri Lanka as a plantation crop. Subsequently, coffee was wiped
out of the county due to coffee rust disease and tea was introduced. Bamber (1900),
studied the nutrient status and physical constituents of tea growing soils. Subsequently,
Habbord (1913) reported his findings on coconut growing soils of Maha-illuppallama
area in the dry zone. He described the various soils found in that area using colour and
texture. During the same period Bruce (1922) studied the rice and forest soils of Sri
Lanka. As in many countries, soils were named and studied according to the crops grown
during this period. During this time Schokalsky made an attempt to classify soils of Sri
Lanka according to world soil groups but was not successful as sufficient information
was not available (Joachim, 1935). The importance of the soil profile as the unit of study
was recognized by Eden (1929) who initiated a systematic study on tea growing soils.

The first systematic soil investigation on a pedological basis in Sri Lanka was initiated by
Joachim and his co-workers in 1920 (Joachim, 1935). The climate, nature of parent rock,
and topography was identified as major soil forming processes. During this time the
government of Sri Lanka’s priority was to promote agriculture in the Dry zone, and the
emphasis of soil studies changed accordingly. A detailed account of early investigations
of soils in the Dry zone research station at Maha-Illuppallama is documents by
Dharmasena (2003). Information collected during these studies prompted Joachim to
publish the first provisional soil map of Sri Lanka in 1945, which is an important land
mark in development of Soil Science in Sri Lanka. This provisional soil map is shown in
Figure 1, where soils were classified into five major groups based mainly on parent
material and subdivided into 15 units according to texture, colour and major crops grown.
These were parallel to criteria used at that time in classifying world soils. This
classification is given in Table 1 which also serves as the legend of the map in Figure 1.

In 1948 Sri Lanka became an independent nation and the government gave priority to
settling farmers in the Dry zone by developing village tank based irrigation schemes. At
this time, many dry zone lands were under shifting cultivation (chena). Joachim and
Kandiah (1948) reported the fist systematic study on soil properties under shifting
cultivation and concluded that these lands become unsuitable for cultivation after few
years due to weed growth, soil compaction and erosion than depletion of soil fertility. It
was evident that during this early period more emphasis was on soil survey, classification
and mapping on soils. These were followed by some basic investigations of soils.

Middle Period (1956-1972)

During this time Ponnamperuma (1959) studied rice-growing soils in detail and proposed
a classification system for the low country wet zone of Sri Lanka. One of the major
achievements of 1955-1960 was the collection of valuable information on the land

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Figure 1. The first provisional soil map of Sri Lanka published by Joachim in 1945 (For
the key refer to Table 1).

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Table 1. Key to the soil map shown in Figure 1

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1. Soils derived from Igneous and Gneissic Rocks
i. Lataratic (cabook) and lataratic reddish yellow loams and gravelly loams of
ultra wet zone
ii. Reddish to yellowish red lataratic loams of wet zone
iii. lataratic and non-lataratic red. Reddish brown and dark grey loams of dry
zone
iv. Non-lataratic grey brown sandy loams

2. Soils associated with limestone

i. Red loams derived from Miocene limestone
ii. Grey loams derived from Miocene limestone
iii. Black heavy loams associated with Miocene and crystalline limestone
iv. Brown red loams associated with crystalline limestone (mainly dolomite)
v. Red loams associated with Jurassic limestone

3. Humic soils overlying yellowish to reddish latarite and lataritic loams and white
sands
i. Grassland (Patna) soils (wet and dry)
ii. Fernland (Kekilla) soils
iii. Low lying peaty soils (paddy lands etc.)

4. Soils derived from Pleistocene and sub recent deposits

i. Red and brown sandy soils (coconut soils) over gravel
ii. White sands (cinnamon soils etc.)

5. Recent alluvial deposits

i. Reddish brown, grey brown, and yellowish brown loams and clays
ii. Existing paddy (gley) soils.
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resource by aerial resource surveys from a Canada-Ceylon Colombo plan aid project.
This covered 15 major river basins and about 1/4th of the island, which resulted in
producing an excellent soil map and information of the areas under the title of the
Kelani Aruvi Ara report (Hunting Survey Cooperation, 1963). This study considered the
catenary distribution of soils in the landscape and morphological features of soils. Based
on these information, data collected by Joachim and co-workers in various agricultural
development schemes of the dry zone (Joachim, 1955) as well as soil surveys conducted
by the Land Use Division of the Department of Agriculture, the soils of Sri Lanka was
classified to 14 Great Soil Groups by Mooman and Panabokke (1961). These are given
in Table 2. The basis for classifying soils to Great Soil Groups were the nature and
arrangement of genetic soil horizons, colour, texture, structure, consistency, water regime
and chemical properties. The diagnostic features of the soils were described according to
the 7th Approximation (Soil Survey Staff, 1960) of the USDA.

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Table 2. Great Soil Groups of Sri Lanka as classified by Mooman and Panabokke (1961)

Great Soil Groups

1. Reddish Brown Earth soils 7. Low-Humic Gley soils

2. Noncalcic Brown Soil 8. Regosols (on recent /old sands)
3. Red Yellow Podzolic Soils (Model) 9. Solodized Solonetz
a). Sub group with prominent A horizon 10. Grumusols
b). Sub group with soft Latarite 11. Bog and half Bog soils
c). Sub group with dark horizon 12. Meadow Podzolic soils
4. Red Yellow Latasols 13. Rendzena soils
a). Calcic sub group 14. Alluvial soils
5. Reddish Brown Latasolic soils
6. Immature Brown loams

The studies of Hunting Survey cooperation were extended to Walawa and Krindi oya
basins, another two vital river basins in 1968 (Hunting Survey Cooperation, 1968).
Another milestone during this period was classification o rubber growing soils of the Wet
and Intermediate soils to eight soil series according to the characters of parent material
and response to fertilizer applications (Silva, 1971). In addition, Panabokke and
Nagarajah (1964) surveyed the fertility characteristics of paddy growing soils while
Tokutome et al. (1971) contributed to the classification of paddy lands by studying soils
of four selected areas of Sri Lanka on gleying, mottling and hydromorphic properties.
The interests on classification of paddy growing soils curtailed, as these were difficult to
use for practical applications.

An important landmark of the history of Soil Science in Sri Lanka during this period was
the formation of the Soil Science Society of Sri Lanka in 1969. Soil Scientists from
Government Departments of Agriculture and Irrigation joined with scientists of well
established Tea, Rubber and Coconut Research Institutes to form this Society where the
founder president and secretary were Dr. A.W.R. Joachim and Prof. Stanly Kalpage. This
society was formed to promote the advancement of Soil Science in Sri Lanka, to foster
contacts between workers of all branches in soil science and to disseminate the
knowledge pertaining to Soil Science. The publication of the Journal of Soil Science
Society of Sri Lanka, opened opportunities for Soil Scientists to publish and disseminate
their work. The society also provided flexibility for the Soil Scientists of the government
sector to come out from the rigid framework of the governmental structure at that time
and to interact with other scientists. During the middle period, the emphasis on soil
investigations was changed towards soil fertility studies and use of chemical fertilizers.

Present Period (From 1972)

Using the soil survey data collected through various projects De Alwis and Panabokke
(1972) revised the soil classification by Mooman and Panabokke published in 1961. In

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the revised classification of 1972, the intermediate sub groups identified in the previous
classification was upgraded to Great Soil Groups increasing them to 23. The equivalent
nomenclature according to 7th Approximation was also included. With this revision of
soil classification a soil map of Sri Lanka with 31 mapping units at a scale of 1;5,000,000
was published and is shown in Figure 2. The map and relevant soil information was
published as the handbook of the Soils of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) as the Volume II of the
Journal of Soil Science Society of Ceylon (De Alwis and Panabokke, 1972). The soils of
Sri Lanka was mapped and described under three categories, as the map units of the Dry
zone and Semi Dry Intermediate zone, map units of the Wet Zone and Semi Wet
Intermediate Zone, and Miscellaneous land units. These 23 Great Soil Groups and their
7th Approximation equivalents are shown in Table 3. This map and the information were
most extensively used by scientists and extension workers of the country. This map was
updated many times using the information from Mahaweli development project and work
conducted by the Departments of Agriculture and Irrigation, various research institutes as
Tea, Rubber, Coconut and Sugarcane Research Institute. These additional studies relates
to investigations on soil fertility, physical and chemical properties, nature of organic
matter, macro and micro nutrient status, mineralogy and their distribution and
classification. De Alwis and Pluth (1976) studied the soil mineralogy of Red and Yellow
Latasols and reclassified these as Alfisols instead of Oxisols as documented before. The
characteristics of soils of the low lying areas of the Wet zone of Sri Lanka including Bog,
Half Bog and Alluvial soils were studied by Dimantha ( 1977). The Coconut Research
Institute studied the coconut growing soil in the coconut triangle in detail and completed
a land suitability assessment (Somasiri et.al.,1994) for coconut.

By this time there was a real need to classify soils of Sri Lanka according to international
methods as Soil Taxonomy (Soil Survey Staff, 1975) or the FAO-UNESCO method for
agro-technology transfer. In addition, there was a need for developing a national digital
database for efficient decision making on issues related to land. With these objectives, the
SRICANSOL Project (Sri-Lanka Canada Soil Research Project), a twinning project
between the Soil Science Societies of Sri Lanka and Canada, funded by Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA) through Agriculture Institute of Canada
(AIC) was initiated to characterize, classify and map soils in a detail manner, and to
prepare a digital soil database. The study started in 1995 covering the Wet zone,
Intermediate and Dry zone in separate phases and later to combine them together.
Twenty eight soil series were identified and mapped in the Wet zone of Sri Lanka at a
scale of 1:250,000. The map consisted of 32 mapping units with soil associations,
complexes and landforms as shown in Figure 3. A benchmark site for each soil series
was characterized and information published as books for general reader (Mapa et al.,
1999) and data as fact sheets. Similarly, 40 and 51 soil series were identified and mapped
in the Intermediate and Dry zones, respectively (Mapa et al., 2005; Mapa et al., 2007).
These maps provide more information at series level than the 1972 soil map by De Alwis
and Panabokke (1972), and a digital data base consisting of the benchmark sites will be
released shortly. More detailed soil surveys are planned as the second phase of
SRICANSOL project for agriculturally sensitive environments in the future. During this
period the emphasis was on use of more inputs as fertilizers and obtaining higher yields
for food security in the country. The need for using international methods in soil

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Table 3. Great Soil Groups of Sri Lanka according to classification of De Alwis and
Panabokke (1972) and the 7th Approximation equivalents

Great Soil Group 7th Approximation Equivalents

Soils of the Dry Zone and Semi-dry Intermediate Zone

Reddish Brown Earth soils Plintustalfs/Hplustalfs/Pinthustalfs

Low Humic Gley soils Tropaqualfs
Solodized Solonetz Natraqulfs
Solonchaks Salorthides
Noncalcic Brown soils haplustalfs
Immature Brown Loams Ustropepts
Red Latasols Eutrustox/Haplustox
Yellow Latasols Eutrustox/Haplatox
Calcic Red Latasols Eutrustox
Grumusols Pellusterts
Recent Marine Calcareous Sediments Ustorthents
Soils on Old Alluvium Quartzipsamments
Alluvial soils of variable drainage and texture Tropofluvents
Regosols on recent beach sands Quartzipsamments

Soils of the Wet Zone and Semi Wet Intermediate Zone

Red Yelow Podzoloc soils (RYP) Rhodudults/Tropudults/Rhodustuls

RYP with Strongly Mottled subsoil Tropudults
RYP with Soft and Hard Latarite Plintudults
RYP with Dark B Horizon Tropohumults
RYP with Prominent A1 Horizon Tropohumults
RYP with Semi-prominent A1 horizon Tropudults
Reddish Brown Latasolic soils Rhodudults/Tropudults
Immature Brown Loams Dystopepts
Bog soils Tropofibrists/Tropohemists
Half Bog soils Tropaquepts

classification was felt where some emphasis was given to studying soil methodologically
for such uses and updating the existing soil maps. The need to conserve the environment,
especially soil and water resources being polluted, became a need with more and more
inputs used for agriculture. Soil erosion and sedimentation of reservoirs, pollution of
ground water resources by nitrogen, pollution of surface and ground water by pesticide
and increase of heavy metals as Cadmium are shown as major environmental problems
related to Soil Science at present.

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Figure 2. Soil map of Sri Lanka published by De Alwis and Panabokke in 1972 at a
scale of 1:5,000,000

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 CONCLUSIONS

When the landmarks of the history of soil science was considered it was evident how the
emphasis changed from basic soil studies to soil survey, classification and mapping, and
subsequently to improvement of soil fertility. During early periods starting from 1880
basic soil studied were conducted on Coffee, Tea and Rice growing soils as well as on
shifting cultivation. The first soil classification of Sri Lanka and provisional soil map was
published in 1945 by Dr. A.W.R. Joachim who is considered as the father of Soil Science
in Sri Lanka. This map was later updated in 1961 and 1972. The emphasis then changed
to soil fertility and use of fertilizers to obtain higher yields for food security of the
country. During the present period their was interest in classifying the soils according to
international methods as Soil Taxonomy and FAO-UNESCO methods and mapping of
the soils in more detailed manner for use in land use planning. The environmental
concerns due to use of higher inputs creating pollution of soil and water resources have
become major research needs for the future. The development of past knowledge on Soil
Science need to be studied documented and respected as these were collected with less
resources as practiced now. This past knowledge on Soil Science should be the base in
developing future strategies related to Environmental Soil Science in Sri Lanka.

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Figure 3. Distribution of the Wet zone soils of Sri Lanka at series level published at a
Scale of 1:250,000 by SRICANSOL project

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