A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T
Article history:
Received: July 12, 2017
Accepted: September 03, 2017
Available online: October 28, 2017
The high proliferation rate of population and their over growing demands for foods
that rely on environment and natural resources resulted in evaluation and recognition
of more inputs, in particular soil and water resources. In this regard, mapping the soil
properties is considered as well-adopted approach to provide fundamental
information related to land resources. As a branch of applied statistics, geostatistics
uses the collected information sampled location to provide a broad range of estimates
concerning the land properties in unsampled locations. In the present study, we
evaluated the performance of estimates kriging, inverse distance weighting, and
Cokriging to map some of the soil quality properties in chat fields of Golestan
province located in northern part of Iran. We measured percentage of clay, silt, sand,
calcium carbonate, organic carbon, and concentrations of micronutrients such as iron,
copper, zinc, manganese, and concentrations of macronutrients including nitrogen,
potassium, and phosphorus as main parameters affecting the soil quality. Sampling
was performed on grids 250 × 250 meters in 35 points of the depth of 20 cm. After
data normalization, experimental semivariograms was drawn. For Kriging and
Cokriging estimation we utilized spherical, exponential, circular, and Gaussian
models, and to estimate variables using Inverse Distance Weighting, the parameters
of 1-5 power was used. Kriging method was found to the two other methods for
estimation of soil properties under study. For the estimation of electrical conductivity
and soil’ iron content, the Kriging and Cokriging showed the best estimation of
results. However, to estimate the other parameters of soil (sand, organic carbon, pH
and lime) inverse distance weighting method with power one was found to have the
least error leading to the best interpolation. Finally, considering the best method of
interpolation, zoning maps of soil quality properties was created in the GIS.
© 2017 Nikpey et al. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Geostatistics
Geographic Information System
Soil Quality
*
Corresponding Author;
E. Mail:
mohammadali.nikpey@modares.ac.ir
Introduction
n recent years, the need for better utilization of
existing cultivated land is sensed in large part
due to rapid population growth along with
development of industrial and residential zones,
limitation of land’s fertility, and a serious global
crisis (Mubarak et al., 2009). A sustainable
agriculture can be achieved upon classifying the
existing lands resources based on their suitability for
various agricultural purposes in addition to
establishing strategies for better exploitation of
I
Advances in Agricultural Science
Volume 5 (2017), Issue 03, 01-15
Journal homepage: www.aaasjournal.org
ISSN: 2588-3801
Comparison of Spatial Interpolation Methods for Mapping the
Qualitative Properties of Soil
Mohammadali Nikpey
1*
, Mahdi Sedighkia
2
, Mohammad Bagher Nateghi
1
, Javad Robatjazi
3
1
Research and Innovation Center of Etka Organization, Tehran, Iran
2
Water Structure Department, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
3
Department of Soil and Water Engineering, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Gorgan, Iran.
Research Article Open Access