Spatial Variability Mapping of Some Soil Properties in Jadwal Al_Amir Project/Babylon/Iraq

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 (CaCO3), and organic matter content (O.M.) were measured by collecting soil samples from (0-30 cm) soil depths at 150 sampling sites. Soil properties were analyzed using both classical and geostatistical methods that included descriptive statistics, semivariograms, cross-semivariograms spatial kriged and cokriged prediction maps and interpolation. Results indicated that moderate to strong spatial variability existed across the study area for soil properties considered in this study. Strong spatial dependency of soil properties was related to structural intrinsic factors such as parent material and mineralogy. Furthermore, cross-semivariograms exhibited a strong spatial interdependency between clay content with sqrtECe, CaCO3 minerals content, and log O.M. content. These results indicated that cokriging improved predictions for clay content with soil properties studied and considered to be an accurate and adequate procedure for spatial interpolation and evaluation of soil properties considered in this study.