Spatial variability mapping of some soil properties

Knowledge of the spatial variability of soil properties is essential for site-specific soil management and evaluation of various agricultural land management practices. This study was carried out to identify and compare spatial variation of some soil physical and chemical properties in the Jadwal Al_Amir Project / Babylon / Iraq. Soil properties including soil texture fractions (sand, silt, clay), electrolytic conductivity (ECe), calcium carbonate minerals content, organic matter content were measured by collecting soil samples from (0 - 30 cm) soil depths at 39 sampling sites. Soil properties were analyzed using both classical and geostatistical methods that included descriptive statistics, semivariograms, cross-semivariograms spatial kriged and co-kriged prediction maps and interpolation. Results indicated that moderate to strong spatial variability existed across the study area for soil properties considered in this study. The strong spatial dependency of soil properties would lead to the extrinsic factors such as groundwater level and drainage.