Ability to use soils

The purpose of the Charter of Use Capacity is to divide the regional territory into areas according to the possibility of carrying out a more or less large number of the main agricultural and/or forestry crops. With reference to the possible crops in Emilia-Romagna’s most favoured agricultural areas, to which the concept of maximum capacity for use (class I) has been associated, all those factors that in some way restrict the scope of choice of crops and/or their productivity have been considered. The Land Use Capacity Charter for agricultural and forestry purposes is a database for assessing the ability of soils to produce normal forest crops and species for long periods of time, without any occurrence of soil degradation. The classification system provides for eight classes of capacity for use defined according to the type and intensity of limitation of the conditioned soil, both the choice of the crops and the production of the crops. Assignment to the class shall be made on the basis of the most limiting factor; at the next stage soils are assigned to subclasses and units of use capacity. This mechanism makes it possible to identify soils which, although with different taxonomic characteristics, are similar as potential for agricultural and forestry use and present similar problems of resource management and conservation.