Journal rankings · indicator year 2021
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2021
Soil Science journal rankings 2021
43 ranked journals · Subfield in Agricultural and Biological Sciences
Soil Science has 43 ranked journals in 2021. The median OJR fell 0.08 on 2020 to 1.20, above the world average of 1.00; Q1 starts at OJR 2.01. The top three are Soil Biology and Biochemistry, International Soil and Water Conservation Research, and SOIL.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2021. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields of Agricultural and Biological Sciences (11)
43 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2020. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2018–2020 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2012 to 2021. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Soil Biology and BiochemistryElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 3.10Q1 | 8.54 0.61 up from 2020 | 949 | 44% | $4,950 | ||
2International Soil and Water Conservation ResearchOAElsevier BV · China | 3.09Q1 | 7.67 0.21 up from 2020 | 141 | 100% | $1,200 | ||
3SOILOACopernicus Publications · Germany | 2.89Q1 | 9.24 1.50 up from 2020 | 87 | 100% | $1,110 | ||
4Soil and Tillage ResearchElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.70Q1 | 7.05 1.15 up from 2020 | 861 | 27% | $4,570 | ||
5Agriculture Ecosystems & EnvironmentElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.62Q1 | 6.99 1.22 up from 2020 | 953 | 42% | $4,190 | ||
6BiocharOASpringer Nature · Singapore | 2.56Q1 | 11.16 2.88 up from 2020 | 69 | 44% | $2,690 | ||
7Economics of Disasters and Climate ChangeSpringer Science+Business Media · Switzerland | 2.49Q1 | 10.23 7.60 up from 2020 | 61 | 71% | $2,990 | ||
8GeodermaOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.35Q1 | 7.05 0.38 up from 2020 | 1,612 | 36% | $3,320 | ||
9Biology and Fertility of SoilsSpringer Science+Business Media · Germany | 2.28Q1 | 6.68 1.46 up from 2020 | 243 | 33% | $4,790 | ||
10CATENAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.07Q1 | 6.39 0.87 up from 2020 | 1,553 | 21% | $3,680 | ||
11Agricultural Water ManagementOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.01Q1 | 6.51 1.40 up from 2020 | 1,521 | 25% | $3,070 | ||
12PedosphereElsevier BV · China | 2.00Q2 | 6.53 1.21 up from 2020 | 161 | 12% | $3,000 | ||
13Applied Soil EcologyElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.88Q2 | 5.27 0.73 up from 2020 | 831 | 26% | $4,320 | ||
14Applied and Environmental Soil ScienceOAHindawi Publishing Corporation · United Kingdom | 1.76Q2 | 5.87 2.79 up from 2020 | 73 | 100% | $1,000 | ||
15Land Degradation and DevelopmentWiley · United Kingdom | 1.71Q2 | 4.43 0.16 down from 2020 | 908 | 15% | $5,230 | ||
16Nutrient Cycling in AgroecosystemsSpringer Science+Business Media · Netherlands | 1.69Q2 | 4.33 1.13 up from 2020 | 201 | 37% | $3,890 | ||
17International Journal Of Recycling of Organic Waste in AgricultureOASpringer Nature · Iran | 1.65Q2 | 4.21 1.03 up from 2020 | 128 | — | — | ||
18European Journal of Soil ScienceWiley · United Kingdom | 1.60Q2 | 4.36 0.48 up from 2020 | 412 | 42% | $4,490 | ||
19Geoderma RegionalElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.59Q2 | 4.59 0.92 up from 2020 | 185 | 31% | $2,310 | ||
20Soil SystemsOAMultidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute · Switzerland | 1.41Q2 | 4.96 1.72 up from 2020 | 221 | 100% | $2,172 | ||
21Review of Economics and Political ScienceOAEmerald Publishing Limited · Egypt | 1.24Q2 | 1.46 0.46 up from 2020 | 39 | 100% | — | ||
22European Journal of Soil BiologyElsevier BV · France | 1.20Q2 | 3.26 0.05 up from 2020 | 180 | 28% | $3,800 | ||
23Soil Use and ManagementWiley · United Kingdom | 1.20Q3 | 3.84 0.53 up from 2020 | 274 | 35% | $4,120 | ||
24Irrigation ScienceSpringer Science+Business Media · Germany | 1.19Q3 | 3.01 0.20 down from 2020 | 138 | 25% | $3,990 | ||
25Soil Ecology LettersSpringer Science+Business Media · China | 1.12Q3 | 3.41 0.58 up from 2020 | 68 | 36% | $3,790 | ||
26Agricultural & Environmental LettersOAAmerican Society of Agronomy · United States | 0.99Q3 | 2.13 0.97 down from 2020 | 100 | 100% | $1,900 | ||
27Journal of Soils and SedimentsSpringer Science+Business Media · Germany | 0.99Q3 | 3.57 0.50 up from 2020 | 925 | 21% | $3,890 | ||
28Archives of Agronomy and Soil ScienceOATaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 0.99Q3 | 2.32 0.37 down from 2020 | 578 | 12% | — | ||
29Soil Science Society of America JournalWiley · United States | 0.97Q3 | 2.80 0.07 up from 2020 | 563 | 39% | $2,020 | ||
30Journal of Soil and Water ConservationSoil and Water Conservation Society · United States | 0.97Q3 | 2.72 0.15 up from 2020 | 253 | 42% | — | ||
31PedobiologiaElsevier BV · Germany | 0.96Q3 | 2.29 0.37 up from 2020 | 116 | 29% | $3,260 | ||
32Soil and Water ResearchOAÚstav zemědělských a potravinářských informací · Czechia | 0.86Q3 | 2.62 0.17 down from 2020 | 79 | 100% | $609 | ||
33Revista Brasileira de Ciência do SoloOASociedade Brasileira de Ciência do Solo · Brazil | 0.84Q3 | 2.41 0.02 down from 2020 | 195 | 100% | $100 | ||
34Soil ResearchCSIRO Publishing · Australia | 0.71Q4 | 2.21 0.25 up from 2020 | 237 | 36% | — | ||
35Irrigation and DrainageWiley · United Kingdom | 0.61Q4 | 1.64 0.28 up from 2020 | 325 | 14% | $3,450 | ||
36Canadian Journal of Soil ScienceCanadian Science Publishing · Canada | 0.54Q4 | 1.85 0.05 up from 2020 | 176 | 71% | — | ||
37Compost Science & UtilizationTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.51Q4 | 1.31no change | 60 | 13% | — | ||
38Open Journal of Soil ScienceOAScientific Research Publishing · United States | 0.34Q4 | 1.30 0.63 up from 2020 | 76 | 100% | — | ||
39Soil ScienceLippincott Williams & Wilkins · United States | 0.30Q4 | 1.21 0.04 down from 2020 | 36 | — | — | ||
40Irrigation & Drainage Systems EngineeringOMICS Publishing Group · United States | 0.25Q4 | 0.39 0.31 down from 2020 | 41 | 0% | — | ||
41American Journal of Mechanics and ApplicationsOAScience Publishing Group · United States | 0.20Q4 | 0.48 0.11 up from 2020 | 30 | 100% | — | ||
42Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering BOADavid Publishing Company · United States | 0.15Q4 | 0.41 0.17 up from 2020 | 101 | 100% | — | ||
43Open Access Journal of Environmental and Soil SciencesOALupine Publishers · United States | 0.06Q4 | 0.23 0.02 up from 2020 | 56 | 100% | — |
Subfields of Agricultural and Biological Sciences, with Soil Science highlighted.
- Plant Science570
- Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics147
- Food Science138
- Animal Science and Zoology58
- Insect Science51
- Soil Science43
- Agronomy and Crop Science39
- Aquatic Science37
- General Agricultural and Biological Sciences33
- Forestry1
- Horticulture0
Journals
Citations made in 2021. Corpus-wide, 87.7% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
3 additional Soil Science journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2018–2020, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2021. Publication window: 2018–2020. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 43
- Window papers (baseline)
- 48,749 +25.8% from indicator year 2018
- Median OJR
- 1.20 -9.5% from indicator year 2018
- Rising journals (2025)
- 5
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2018–2020 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 24 | 26 | 27 | 27 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 27 | 29 | 29 | 29 | 30 | 30 | 31 | 33 | 35 | 37 | 37 | 39 | 39 | 42 | 43 | 41 | 42 | 40 | 39 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 7,748 | 9,099 | 10,240 | 11,138 | 11,116 | 11,430 | 12,496 | 14,005 | 15,614 | 17,540 | 20,048 | 22,776 | 24,823 | 26,542 | 28,955 | 32,598 | 35,237 | 37,010 | 38,759 | 41,955 | 45,293 | 48,749 | 50,177 | 51,294 | 52,438 | 56,582 | |
| Median OJR | 1.13 | 1.23 | 1.255 | 1.34 | 1.31 | 1.245 | 1.238 | 1.358 | 1.433 | 1.428 | 1.59 | 1.556 | 1.64 | 1.66 | 1.557 | 1.42 | 1.53 | 1.39 | 1.33 | 1.253 | 1.28 | 1.20 | 1.356 | 1.247 | 1.243 | 1.29 |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.