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The demand for food and energy will increase the pressure on soils everywhere in the world in an unprecedented way and this as soon as 2010-2020. Predicting the intensity of physical, chemical and biological processes as well as their interactions will be a major stake to set policies for a sustainable management of the soil resource.

Many models have been developed for the simulation of physical, chemical or biological processes occuring within the soil and at its interfaces with the atmosphere, the roots and the ground water reserves. Although models accounting for several processes are available and more and more frequently used, the tools developed in separated thematic fields remains however largely disconnected despite the fact that the mechanisms interact. A major goal in developing tools able to forecast the impact of human activities and global changes is to bring closer scientists from different thematic fields and to help them share their tools and knowledge. Consequently, INRA Environment and Agronomy Division decided to develop a modeling platform with the following goals:

• to ease the use of existing tools;
• to stimulate the interactions between disciplines;
• to help the emergence of new modeling tools.