The modeling of biological processes has as objectives the planning of land use, setting environmental standards and estimating the actual and potential risks of the agricultural and environmental activities. Several models have been created in the last 25 years. Century is a mechanistic model that analyzes in long-term the dynamics of soil organic matter and of nutrients in soil-plant system in several agroecosystems. The soil organic matter submodel has the active (microbial biomass and products), slow (plant and microbial products that are physically protected or biologically resistant to decomposition) and passive (chemically recalcitrant or physically protected) pools with different decomposition rates. First-order equations are used to model all soil organic matter pools and soil moisture and temperature modifying decomposition rates. Turnover of active pool and formation of passive soil organic matter are mediated by sand and clay content, respectively. Plant residue is partitioned into pools dependent on the lignin and nitrogen content. Through the model, it can link organic matter at the fertility levels and the current and future management, optimizing the understanding of the transformations of the nutrients in soils of the several agroecosystems
carbon; pools; modeling; soil texture
