De geologie, de bodemvorming en de waterstaatkundige ontwikkeling van het Land van Maas en Waal en een gedeelte van het Rijk van Nijmegen

Geology, soil science and the history of water management were surveyed between the rivers Meuse and Waal. Two terrace-shaped sand plains, covered by loamy aeolian sands border the Nymegen ice-pushed ridge. Further west were well formed soils with manganese banks developed in unpushed High Terrace material. The fluvial Low Terrace developed as a braided river system, leaving a meandering river system just before the Allerod period.

Decalcification and soil formation under wet conditions yielded gley and pseudogley soils. The few well drained profiles developed brown soils, sometimes with textural B layers. Aeolian sands of different grain sizes blown from periglacial rivers, form cover sands and inland dunes. These richer sands formed brown podsolic soils or, with secondary blowing, podsols. Holocene alluvium was laid down in cycles of 550 years, of which the most recent ones were of Roman times and medieval.

Meuse alluvial soils are primarily non-calcareous in contrast to the Waal. The oldest ones from Roman times yielded a brown soil with a weak textural B. The younger ones developed alluvial soils with different textures, contents of lime and degrees of gleying.

Cultivation was first without dikes, Which were first round small village units in the 12th century and protected the whole area by the end of the 13th century. Similarly drainage developed from small units to greater units, which lasted until modern times when the whole area was drained in a modern way.