This study developed the classification of National Soil Quality Monitoring Network (NSQM) and its site selection criteria to meet the recently established purposes of the NSQM. The NSQM were suggested by this study to classify into the six-purposes site groups from the current classification of land uses. The six purposes site groups were 1) intensive observation sites, 2) contaminant loading sites, 3) human activity sites, 4) background sites, 5) river soil sites, and 6) sites near the groundwater quality monitoring wells. Furthermore, this study developed the site selection criteria of NSQM utilizing the accumulated NSQM data, road traffic data, chemical emission data, census, soil information, and the literature related to soil quality variation due to contaminant loads. For selecting suitable sites for NSQM, this study used road traffic, chemical emission, the distance from the contaminant sources, and population information as specific criteria. The suggested site classification and criteria were appled for the current 100 NSQM sites for evaluation. Forty sites were met to the criteria suggested by this study, but sixty sites were not met to the criteria. However, some of the sixty sites also included the obscure sites that their addresses were not apparent to find them.

Keywords: Soil quality monitoring network;Soil quality standard;Land use;Soil contamination;Soil environmental policy;