Soil Health Assessment of Agricultural Lands

This chapter provides a brief overview of soil health assessment and summarizes the development of the indexes for assessing soil health. An assessment framework facilitates comparison of results from similar soils and production environments to determine where a field may be on a soil health continuum. The primary soil health indicator for quantifying the water entry function is the infiltration rate, which has secondary effects reflected by surface crusting, surface roughness, soil macroporosity, and crop residue cover. Most soil health assessment frameworks utilize spreadsheets, but Agroecosystem Performance Assessment Tool is a software tool developed to assess relative soil management effects on multiple indicators of agricultural sustainability, including soil health. The comprehensive assessment of soil health framework, initially known as the Cornell Assessment of Soil Health was developed at Cornell University and designed to offer a comprehensive set of soil measurements to support soil and crop management decisions and associated applied research.