ABSTRACT
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Society today is increasingly concerned about the sustainability of soil productivity, the maintenance of biodiversity, and methods for effective soil
remediation and protection. Therefore, methods to quantify the ability of the soil to function and to buffer and resist anthropogenic disturbances have come into focus. The many functions of a soil have led to an extensive discussion of the soil quality concept and how it might be defined and assessed. Two important and generally agreed-upon principles associated with soil quality, as discussed by Karlen et al. (2003), are that it is (1) determined by both inherent and dynamic properties and processes interacting with a living dynamic medium and (2) holistic, reflecting biological, chemical, and physical properties, processes, and interactions within the soil. The concept of soil fertility is often used synonymously with soil quality. However, fertility is more often related to the capacity of the soil to produce and the term as used in the literature is less applicable in natural sciences (Patzel et al., 2000).
