Describe the linkage between climate, vegetation and soils

The linkage between climate, vegetation and soils best demonstrates the interaction and interrelations between the atmosphere, biosphere and lithosphere. Vegetation that has evolved in response to the average climatic conditions of a region as well as its occasional temperature and moisture extremes is called natural vegetation. Energy availability is crucial in determining natural vegetation at higher latitudes, whereas moisture supply is more important at lower latitudes. In sub-humid climates grasslands are predominant, while in humid climates the natural vegetation is usually forest. In polar and sub-arctic climates, where solar energy input is more critical than moisture, the natural vegetation is tundra. Vegetation in widely separated regions with similar climates has been known to evolve similar characteristics.
Therefore major vegetation regions of the world correspond to climatic regions of the world.
Similarly on a global scale, major soil types show a close relationship to climatic zones.
The energy and moisture delivered by the atmosphere influence many aspects of soil formation. These include translocation, the rates of chemical reactions, and organic activity in the soil. Abundant rainfall aids translocation, and warm and wet conditions favour chemical reactions and organic activity. Both vegetative production and the activity of soil bacteria and other larger organisms are curtailed in desert and tundra
regions and enhanced in humid tropical regions. In dry desert environment, both plant litter and soil organisms are minimal, and in the tundra organic litter decays slowly, often forming acidic peat. Plant production is at a maximum in the warm and wet tropics, but here the destruction of litter by organisms is so rapid and thorough that the soil is actually poor in organic matter.
Climate affects the chemistry of soil moisture, which in turn affects the solubility of various substances in the soil. For example iron can be removed only by acidic water. Soil water tends to be acidic in cool wet areas, which are normally covered by coniferous forest. Therefore iron is leached from the topsoil profiles in such areas. In dry regions lime leached from the upper portion of the soil is re-deposited at a lower level where the moisture evaporates rather than moving through the water table.
Many soils contain features formed thousand of years ago under different environmental conditions. Such remnant features are important indicators of past climates and vegetation, and have given evidence of shifts in climatic boundaries. Soils also reflect expansion and contraction of the world’s deserts, as well as less severe climatic fluctuations in nearly all parts of the world.
In Kenya regions of moderate temperatures and high rainfall such as western, central rift, central region and coastal strip are endowed with fertile soils and natural forests. They are therefore the most agriculturally productive regions of the country. Most of the remaining parts of the country are arid and semi-arid having poor soils, scanty vegetation, and mainly utilised for pastoralism.

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francis1897 answered the question on October 11, 2022 at 08:31