Qualitative Land Suitability Evaluation for Main Irrigated Crops in the Shahrekord Plain, Iran： A Geostatistical Approach Compared with Conventional Method

• Published in: Pedosphere Vol. 23; no. 6; pp. 767 - 778
• Main Authors: SAFARI, Y., ESFANDIARPOUR-BOROUJENI, I., KAMALI, A., SALEHI, M.H., BAGHERI-BODAGHABADI, M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2013; College of Agriculture, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Rafsanjan 77139-36417,Iran%Department of Soil Science, College of Agriculture, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Rafsanjan 77139-36417,Iran%Department of Soil Science, College of Agriculture, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord 88186-34141,Iran
• Subjects: land use planning; ordinary kriging; representative pedon; soil variability; Solanum tuberosum; Triticum aestivum; 伊朗; 传统方法; 土地适宜性评价; 土壤属性; 地质统计学; 平原; 灌溉作物; 统计学方法; ordinary kriging; land use planning; representative pedon; soil variability
• ISSN: 1002-0160; 2210-5107
• DOI: 10.1016/S1002-0160(13)60068-5

The purity of soil map units and their quality for various uses like land suitability evaluation are always questioned. The main objective of this study was to compare the precision of qualitative land suitability classification based on geostatistical and conventional soil mapping methods for main irrigated crops in the Shahrekord Plain, Central Iran. A regular grid sampling method consisting 104 sample points was designed and soil samples were collected. Ordinary kriged maps were achieved for all studied soil attributes after physico-chemical analyses. Afterward, to combine kriged maps and ecological requirements of the studied crops, a script was designed in ILWIS 3.4 software and consequently, kriged qualitative land suitability maps were generated. Conventional qualitative land suitability was also mapped based on the representative pedon analysis in each soil map unit. Finally, comparison of the conventional and kriged maps was carried out using the statistical method, error matrix. The results showed that the overall accuracies of wheat, sugar beet, potato and alfalfa maps were 39.8%, 24.3%, 18.7% and 18.6% at subclass category, respectively, whereas these values increased to 80.9%, 82.3%, 23.7% and 82.3% at class level, respectively. Hence, it can be stated that thanks to the relative facility of conventional soil survey compared with geostatistical methods, this method can be expressed as a preferable way for handling a usual land suitability evaluation design; but using soil map units as land suitability delineations may lead to unsatisfactory results in estimation of quantity and type of existing limitations.