Guidelines for Soil Quality Assessment in Conservation Planning

Soil quality is the capacity of a specific kind of soil to function within natural or managed ecosystem boundaries to: * sustain plant and animal productivity * maintain or enhance water and air quality * support human health and habitation Soil function describes what the soil does. Soil functions are: (1) sustaining biological activity, diversity, and productivity; (2) regulating and partitioning water and solute flow; (3) filtering and buffering, degrading, immobilizing, and detoxifying organic and inorganic materials, including industrial and municipal by-products and atmospheric deposition; (4) storing and cycling nutrients and other elements within the earth's biosphere; and (5) providing support of socioeconomic structures and protection for archeological treasures associated with human habitation. (Seybold et al, 1998).