Abstract:
For a long time, the soils covering areas strongly transformed by human were ignored in scientifi c
discourse. Also, practice did not care much about these soils because of their unproductivity. Only
the large post-mining areas reclaimed and transformed into a forest or agricultural land were more
interesting both for science and practice. In the case of post-mining areas the term “soilless land”
was used for a long time, especially in relation to areas which were not reclaimed. In this paper,
the past studies (until the end of 20th century) of technogenic soils in Poland were described. Technogenic
soils of urban and industrial areas appeared in scientifi c considerations in Poland in the
second half of the 20th century. In those times, soil properties on disposal sites were mainly investigated
as a basic information for further design of technical and biological reclamation on disposal
sites. Two Polish scientists should be emphasised as the world pioneers in concepts and studies of
technogenic soils: (1) Michał Strzemski, who proposed a classifi cation scheme for soils in urban and
industrial areas, as well as listed the tasks for future studies of these soils, and (2) Tadeusz Skawina,
who focused on the dynamic and directions of the soil-forming processes on the mine spoils in
the context of their reclamation. Moreover, studies of technogenic soils in the last two decades
were also shown in the paper. From the beginning of the 21st century the scientifi c research gained
momentum. Nowadays, Polish researchers have great achievements in studying technogenic soils,
including investigation of their properties, genesis, evolution, classifi cation, biological features etc.
Furthermore, we drew some outlines for future studies of Technosols.
