Quantitative Evaluation of Soil Functions: Potential and State

Soils play a key role for the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Thus, soils are essential for human society not only because they form the basis for the production of food. This has been recognized since long and during the last three decades the need to establish methods to evaluate the ability of soils to provide soil functions has moved towards the top of the agenda in soil science. Quantitative evaluation schemes are indispensable to...