Abstract form

An investigation on soil salinity variability using different methods of
geostatistics
R. TAGHIZADEH MEHRJARDI 1 , M. TAZEH 2 , Sh. MAHMOODI 3
1 PhD Student of Soil Science, 2 PhD Student of Desertification, , 3 Professor of Soil
Science, University of Tehran, Iran
The spatial and temporal distribution of ecosystem characteristics is required for
sustainable management and optimum exploitation of the resources. Soil quality
preservation is one of the most important factors in sustainable ecosystem management.
Therefore, knowing the spatial distribution of soil characteristics is very important. In
the present study, kriging, cokriging and IDW methods were used for prediction of
spatial distribution of salinity in soils of Khezrabad region in Yazd province. After data
normalization, the variogram was developed. For selecting the best model for
computing an experimental variogram, the lower RSS value was used. The best model
for interpretation was selected by means of cross validation and error evaluation
methods, such as RMSE method. The results showed that kriging and cokriging
methods are better than IDW method for prediction of soil salinity spatial distribution.
Also the results showed that soil salinity was better determined by cokriging method.
The sum of Ca+Mg concentration which was highly correlated with soil salinity is used
as auxiliary parameter in this study. At last the soil salinity map was prepared, using the
best interpolation method in GIS environment.
Key word: soil salinity, spatial distribution, geostatistics, cross validation
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