The sustenance of food and nutritional security are the major challenges of the 21st century. The domestic food production needs to increase per annum at the rate of 2% for cereals and 0.6% for oilseeds and pulses to meet the demand by 2030. The Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) and the black soil regions (BSR) are the two major food production zones of the country. Since irrigation potetential is limited and expansion of irrigated area is tardy, rainfed agriculture holds promise to satisfy future food needs.

Innovative methods are increasingly important to utilize existing soil information and in this context spatial soil information systems play an important role. Soil is an important component of land use planning as it acts both as a source and sink of energy for many functions of the land. In general, all living and non-living things on earth get their energy for functioning from the soil in the form of nutrients, water and air.

A study was undertaken in the established benchmark soil series in different agro-ecological sub-regions of Black Soil Regions of India with the objective to assess the urease activity as a function of soil depth, bio-climate, cropping system and land use type. The urease activity declined with increase in soil depth. Maximum activity was restricted within 0–30 cm of soil depth. Cropping systems and bio-climates significantly (p sub-humid (dry) > semi-arid (dry) > arid. The activity in different cropping systems was in decreasing order viz.