ABSTRACT
At a high level of abstraction, the term sustainability aims at maintaining or even improving environmental, social and economic conditions for future generations and therefore includes environmental, technical, social, and economic dimensions, as well as the dimension of time. Under the aspect of land use, sustainability means using land and soil in such a way that the quality and multifunctionality of both is maintained or even improved, thus leaving options for future generations. Soil characteristics should always be analyzed on the basis of their specific role in the controlling processes within a given agricultural land use system. Long-term requirements for sustainable agricultural land management are conditioned on the bounds of nature and can be summarized as the essential governing principles of the biosphere, which should be considered when defining the framework for different sustainable agricultural land use systems.
