Spatial Variability Of Soil Erodibility At El Hammam Catchment, Northeast Of Algeria

Kamel Khanchou () and Sana Boubehziz
Additional contact information
Kamel Khanchou: Department of Geology, Laboratory of Soils and Sustainable Development, Badji Mokhtar University-Annaba, P.O.Box 12, Annaba, Algeria
Sana Boubehziz: Department of Biology, Laboratory of Soils and Sustainable Development, Badji Mokhtar University-Annaba, P.O.Box 12, Annaba, Algeria

Environment & Ecosystem Science (EES), 2019, vol. 3, issue 1, 17-25

Abstract: The concept of erodibility has gained a great importance in the field of soil erosion modelling and applications of soil conservation. Soil erodibility factor has become one of the key factors which determine soil particles resistance to be detached by water erosion. This study was performed to determine soil erodibility factor and assess spatial variability of soil erodibility using geostatistics at El Hammam catchment. In this study 51 samples of surface soil (0-20cm) were collected across the study area of 1000 Ha by preparing point map at GIS. Sampling points were identified in field by a Global Positioning system. Some soil properties and organic matter were measured at laboratory, and permeability and structure were determined using soil texture analysis. Amount of soil erodibility changed from 0.16 to 0.66. The variability analysis has shown that soil properties and erodibility factor have varied significantly in cropland and have ranged from 63% in organic matter and 39% in K factor. The statistical analysis indicated negative correlations of erodibility with clay, organic matter and permeability and negative correlations of this factor with silt, sand and soil str ucture. Based on kriging interpolation method, soil erodibility factor map was generated using Ordinary Kriging. The spherical model has given the best model to predict spatial variability of soil erodibility which root-mean-square error and mean error values of interpolated map were very low. The range of the spatial dependency was equal to 460 m. The study basin has been classified as highly erodible and ecologically vulnerable.

Keywords: Catchment; Soil properties; Soil erodibility; Geostatistics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://environecosystem.com/download/14190/ (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zib:zbnees:v:3:y:2019:i:1:p:17-25

DOI: 10.26480/ees.01.2019.17.25

Access Statistics for this article

Environment & Ecosystem Science (EES) is currently edited by Dr. Marlia Mohd Hanafiah

More articles in Environment & Ecosystem Science (EES) from Zibeline International Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Zibeline International Publishing ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).