How Accurately Is Topsoil Texture Shown on Agricultural Soil Maps? A Case Study of Eleven Fields Located in Poland

Michał Stępień (), Dariusz Gozdowski and Stanisław Samborski
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Michał Stępień: Independent Researcher, 02-760 Warsaw, Poland
Dariusz Gozdowski: Department of Biometry, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 02-787 Warsaw, Poland
Stanisław Samborski: Department of Agronomy, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, 02-787 Warsaw, Poland

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-25

Abstract: Agricultural soil maps (ASMs) showing the agricultural land of Poland were prepared at a 1:5000 scale in the 1960s and 1970s. These maps show land suitability groups, soil type, and soil texture (ST) to a depth of 150 cm. Nowadays, these maps are being digitalized and might be a basis for the preparation of modern soil maps at the local, regional, national, and international levels. The agreement between the ST of the topsoil derived from ASMs and the recently evaluated one for eleven fields located in three voivodeships (regions) of Poland was studied. This study considered the examination of soil profiles or augerings and the laboratory analysis of the ST. The agreement between the ST status in the field and that according to the ASMs was field-specific. A complete agreement (purity) within the field was assessed for 5–79% of ST classes and for 23–100% of agronomic categories (ACs), i.e., groupings of similar ST classes. However, the averaged agreement, which treated adjacent ST classes as having a partial agreement, varied from 37 to 88% for ST classes and from 61 to 100% for the ACs among studied fields. These results indicate the variable quality of the information shown on ASMs and the necessity of improving these maps.

Keywords: agricultural soil maps; soil texture class; agronomic category; purity; averaged agreement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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