As previously illustrated, the increasing anthropic pressure on the environment is leading,
in most parts of the world, to a rapid change in land use and an intensification of
agricultural activities. These processes often result in soil degradation and consequently loss of soil quality. Soil quality could be defined as the capacity of a specific kind of soil to
function, within natural or managed ecosystem boundaries, to sustain plant and animal
productivity, to maintain or enhance water and air quality, and to support human health
and habitation [62,63]. A common criterion for evaluating the long-term sustainability of
ecosystems is to assess the fluctuations of soil quality [64]. Soil reflects ecosystem
metabolism; within soils, all bio-geo-chemical processes of the different ecosystem
components are combined [65]. Monitoring ecosystem components plays a key role in
acquiring basic data to assess the impact of land management systems and to plan resource
conservation. Maintaining soil quality is of the utmost importance to preserving biodiversity
and to the sustainable management of renewable resources.