A key objective of BonaRes is to predict the impact of agricultural management on key soil functions such as biomass production, water storage and filtering, habitat for biological activity, carbon storage, and nutrient recycling. All these functions depend on a multitude of soil processes and their interactions which are sensitive to agricultural management practices and are differing for soils of different properties. This is why the assessment of soil functions needs to be done in a site-specific way. The ultimate goal of BonaRes is to provide policy makers and farmers with scientifically sound information regarding agricultural management options and their impact on soil functions.
To achieve this goal, we are developing a systemic soil process model, the BODIUM Model, which represents the complex interactions between physical, chemical, and biological processes in soils according to the state of current knowledge. The model development is supported by the provision of a literature database, the BonaRes Knowledge Library, which allows for an analysis of impact-response relations structured according to site characteristics. Finally, the Soil Function Evaluation is conducted on behalf of certain key soil properties. For the regional assessment, the spatial differentiation of functional soil types and climatic regions allows for the projection of site-specific model results to the landscape scale.
