The Problem of Identifying and Classifying Post-Cemetery Soils in Urban Areas

Abstract

Death is inseparable from the functioning of the biosphere, including the presence of humans on the World. In 2023, the World population is 8.05 billion, with a global death toll of 150,000 per day. A number of burial sites are associated with the operation of cities, which today have a total population of 4.4 billion people. As settlement forms with a history of thousands of years, cities also have a history of burials implementing. So, the cities are the places for the living and the dead. Nowadays, the burial land includes areas of continuous use, such as those converted into parks, green spaces and even built-up areas. In all of these areas, soils have developed as a result of specific cemetery use and subsequent changes in soils caused by a change in the form of a land use. All of the soils of burial areas could be referred to necrosols, with characteristic features such as: soil profile turbation, burial remains, enrichment of deeper soil horizons with phosphorus and carbon, soil deep mixing, and the presence of various artifacts.In this paper we describe the current state of recognition of the cemeteries of the city of Zielona Góra (Poland) and their soils. In doing so, we have described examples of soils of former cemeteries, which, in the course of urban development, found themselves within built-up areas. Using modern classifications, they can unfortunately only be described as “technogenic” or “other soils” without indicating the presence of former burials. The soils remain in relation to the form of organization of burials, the different approaches to the use of these specific areas in the past and the modern location within the urban area and its form of use. We found the presence of diverse soil profiles in post-cemetery areas within the city, which cannot be well described using the WRB and local soil classification systems. The only choices for such a soils are: Terric Anthrosols and Urbic, Spolic, Ekranic Technosols or Regosols, with some supplementary qualifiers. According to the newest Soil Classification of Poland they represent: Anthrosols, Rigosols, Turbisols, Ekranosols, and Urbisols. Most of the soil properties of historical cemeteries in Zielona Góra, such as grain-size composition, pH, EC, carbon, phosphorus, calcium, nitrogen and heavy metals content, correlate more strongly with the form of land use and location in city districts than with the organization of burials.Nevertheless, especially for the planning of new urban developments, it is particularly significant that human remains are still found in these soils. Knowledge in this regard must flow from specific soil classification determination, made visible in the following spatial studies. We propose to distinguish a new group of Necrosols in soil classification systems, with simple description based on the presence of human remains in the soil profile or (in their absence) residue matter of distinctly dark colour, with N, P and Ca enrichment (after excluding their origin other than from burials).

Keywords: urban land use, necrosols, burial ground protection, spatial relations