Spatial mapping of soil quality indicators for some alluvial deposits, Egypt [electronic resource].

Includes references.

The present study aimed at building-up a geodatabase to characterize and map the soil and terrain attributes for some alluvial deposits in Damanhour district, Egypt. This is carried out through comparing two statistical methods, namely, descriptive statistical analysis and least squares to select the optimum soil quality indicators for the study area. Moreover, geostatistical analysis was carried out to map the spatial distribution of the soil quality indicators. Finally, land capability was calculated for each soil mapping unit. GIS terrain analysis showed that the eastern part of the study area has the lowest elevation having 50% of the total area. Slope ranged from 0 to 0.50% and the main slope class was from 0 to 0.05%, which covered about 90% of the total area. The north facing directions (N, NE, NW) are the dominant aspect classes representing 35.26% of the total area, followed by the south facing directions (S, SE, SW) with 28.36 % of the total area. To categorize soil properties, 40 soil profiles were dug to 200 cm depth. Laboratory analysis indicted that the soil is characterized by clayey texture and low salinity. The most significant soil quality indicators were soil salinity, sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) and available potassium with weights 12.78%, 75.75%, and 98.16% respectively. The soil units obtained by overlay of the soil quality indicators showed that there are five soil units, namely, low saline moderately deep clayey, low saline deep clayey, saline moderately deep clayey, saline deep clayey, and highly saline moderately deep clayey having 48.10%, 14.19%, 32.62%, 4.65%, and 0.44% of the total area respectively. Land capability evaluation indicated that there were two classes (C2 and C3) with soil salinity" and hydraulic conductivity as soil limitations.

Summary in Arabic.

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