Bonitierter

Bonitierter is a German adjective formed from bonitieren, describing land, soil or sites that have been evaluated for their productive potential or suitability for specific uses. The act of bonitieren, bonitierung or Standortbonität assessment assigns a rating to a site, indicating its quality or capacity to yield under particular farming or forestry regimes. The term is mainly used in agricultural, horticultural and forestry planning and land evaluation.

A bonitiert site is typically assessed with regard to factors such as soil type and depth, texture, structure and drainage, fertility status, climate, slope and exposure, as well as current management practices. The resulting bonität rating, which can be expressed as a numerical class, a letter grade or a descriptive category (for example good, average, poor), serves as a basis for decision making. It helps determine crop choices, fertilization and irrigation needs, rotation planning, or the selection of tree species in forestry. In some regions, bonitierte soils or sites feed into land valuation, leasing terms, subsidies or zoning decisions within planning processes.

Regional variation is common: different countries or states may use different scales or criteria for bonitation, so a bonitiert classification is not always directly comparable across borders. The concept is distinct from the financial use of the term Bonität, which denotes creditworthiness, though both share the idea of a relative quality rating. In practice, bonitierter denotes that a site has undergone a formal evaluation of its productive potential.