Land management that enhances living plant cover, minimizes disturbance, and increases biodiversity is increasingly viewed as critical to improving soil health. These changes measured with soil health indicators should also result in measurable changes in soil functions. This session will explore the mechanisms of change under practices that shift the health and related function of the soil, implications for the productivity of working lands, and impacts on elemental budgets at farm to global spatial scales.

Contributions that advance the scientific underpinnings of the soil health concept are welcomed. Topics may include: processes that modulate soil organic matter amount, form, and turnover, comparisons of indicators or evaluations of indicators as proxies for functions, controls on greenhouse gas production and nitrate leaching, limits to soil carbon sequestration in managed soils, impacts of improved management on soil physical and microbial processes, and impacts of historical land use on soil function.

• SSSA: Soil Science Society of America -