Hi Atul, 

Here is an inventory of parameters used for soil quality and health assessment (with authors and date).

There is not only biological parameters, but you can check the biology part specifically.

More parameters are sometimes and I did not have time to put them in this table.

I recommend you the Danish report "NERI technical report No. 388" called "Microorganisms as indicators of soil health". There is a good catalogue of parameters.

I don't know what you want or can measure exactly but there are many more indicators available. I recommend Arias et al (2005): "Soil Health - a new challenge for microbiologists and chemists" for an overview of some more advanced indicators.

I'd be glad to see this table growing so feel free to add information and to forward it if you use it ;-)

Cheers

What i think is basically N P K Measurements are the primarily important for overall soil health indicators along with the micronutrients.

If you ask me: we, as a scientific community have somewhat ruined the concept of soil health by overdescribing it. We relate soil health too far too many soil parameters, so that it becomes a concept that is no longer understandable by the broader community. This is a pity because it is a concept that could well be used to promote soil and environmental sciences. So, I would suggest to keep  it simple: the presence of a sufficent stock of soil organic carbon, the bulk density of the soil layers and the pH will tell you already a lot of the condition the soil is in.

Kind regards, Gerard

Dear Alul, I basically agree with Gerard Govers about the information reported by Soil Organic Matter Content -directly related to many soils parameters, like bulk density and Water Holding Capacity, and pH. But If you analyze the parameters you mentioned you can also calculate relational variables as: Metabolic quotient and Cmic to Corg ratio.

Dear all, Isomewhat agree that few important parameters gives the soil health status of a soil. But we want the quantification of the health so, can we measure soil health indices like soil quality indices. Because todays time soil health is more discussed rather than soil quality although soil scientist say the both are synonemous.

as a soil microbiologist i feel soil health must be seen in different form.

Thanks for sharing views.

Dr. Atul

HI Atul,

You are absolutely right when you state that soil quality is not the same as soil health: in my view quality needs always to be defined in terms of a purpose. A soil can be excellent to support a diverse natural vegetation but may be too poor in nutrients (or waterlogged...) to support agriculture. But it both cases its health can be assessed: does the soil function as one may expect ? I would argue that the latter can be done using a limited number of parameters: one may include a parameter such as microbial biomass, but we should restrict the number of dimension that we want to measure for soil health. If not the concept will no longer be useful as it cannot be communicated and/or universally applied...

Yes you are right sir, "capacity to function" is soil health. It is not universally applied to every type of soil. But if we consider only health of a good irrigated agricultural land then? I mean some parameter must be defined. capacity function at what level (means in terms of input/output value?). After lot of reading and understanding i got cleared the concept that qualitative terms means soil health and if we go for quantity by value then means soil quality.

thanks for sharing views.