abstract: Nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas that is ca.300 times more effective at radiative forcing than CO2 on a mole basis. Moreover, in the stratosphere, N2O is transformed by photolysis to NO, which is responsible for stratospheric ozone destruction. The vast majority of N2O originates from microbes that break down nitrogen compounds in soils and in the oceans. Agricultural soils are the most significant anthropogenic sources of nitrous oxide. Agricultural fertilizers, fossil fuel combustion, biomass burning, and animal waste contribute to N2O production. Increasing N-inputs into agricultural soils are suspected to be responsible for increasing N2O emission into the atmosphere. The amounts of N2O emitted from soils depend on complex interactions between soil properties (especially soil aeration status, temperature and carbon availability, soil texture), type and management of N fertilizer preceding crop, residue management, and other agricultural practices as well as prevailing climatic conditions. Soil is heterogeneous and commonly has both aerobic and anaerobic sites. The oxygen status in soil, which is inversely proportional to the amount of moisture held there, appears in many studies to be one of the key factors influencing nitrous oxide production. Nitrous oxide emission from soils varies strongly with soil water content. Total denitrification fluxes (N2O plus N2) are directly proportional to soil NO3- concentrations when the other important component, a readily metabolizable organic substrate, is also present and non rate-limiting. When a lack of metabolizable organic matter limits potential denitrification, N2 plus N2O fluxes do not increase with increasing NO3- concentration. Soil texture is a good predictor of denitrification rates at the landscape scale part because it captures the interaction between water content and soil porosity with respect to gas and solute diffusion path length. Apart from nitrous oxide emission soil can also remove atmospheric N2O under conditions favorable for N2O reduction. This is probably only a minor sink on the global scale, but elimination of N2O in the stratosphere is so slow that even a small soil sink can contribute significantly to diminish of the atmospheric residence time of N2O. N2O reduction is the only known process important for N2O turnover and sink in soil. Understanding of the processes related to nitrous oxide formation and uptake may be useful in predicting of N-fertilizer fate in soil.