Cambisol – a transforming soil


Why Cambisol?

Good question!

A Cambisol is a soil type from the FAO soil classification, consisting of the words cambiare (“change” in Latin and Italian) and sol (you guessed it: “soil”). We love the soil type and its profile, but there are more relevant reasons why Cambisol was picked as the name of this environmental consultancy bureau.

Characteristics of the soil type Cambisol?

The Cambisol has just started to form, it is a relatively young soil with hardly any soil formation visible: there are no strong horizon differentiations (see the picture, no sharp lines between the horizontal colors). The soil profile show different medium to fine-textured materials originating from rocks that have been degraded slowly by water (alluvium), soil erosion (colluvium) and wind (aeolian). So a soil in transformation!

The soils are used and well suited for agricultural lands and often belong to the most productive soils on our planet.

This transforming soil is the inspiration for our name. If we would ever expand to Germany we could call ourselves Braunerde and for France it would be Brunisol. We have not yet got used to this, so for now we will stick to Cambisol.

Parallels between the soil type and our vision?

  • Young & in motion
  • Transforming
  • Productive
  • Multidimensional
Cambisol FAO soil type in development, name of cambisol consultancy service by Teun Vogel and Anton Pijl, picture taken at the Soil Museum of ISRIC at Wageningen.
picture taken at the Soil Museum of ISRIC at Wageningen (NL)