Document Type : Research Article
Authors
Department of Soil Science, College of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
Abstract
Abstract
Soil quality evaluation is an essential issue in soil management for agriculture and natural resource protection. Soil quality indices are useful tools for determination and comparison of soils quality. Using of principle component analysis in this study we selected 6 important properties as a soil quality minimum data set (MDS) among 18 soil properties (TDS). Then, soil quality of agriculture and pasture lands in DehSorkh region in south of Mashhad city was evaluated by Integrated quality index (IQI) and Nemero quality index (NQI) in two collections of soil properties include MDS and TDS. The results showed that soils of the region had low quality in respect to studied indices and was significant correlation between IQITDS - IQIMDS and between NQITDS - NQIMDS. Generally those results show that determined MDS can be a suitable representative of TDS. In addition, comparison of soil quality indices between agriculture and pasture soils showed that efficiency of TDS collection in determining land use effect on soil quality indices was better than that of MDS.
Keywords: Integrated quality index, Nemero quality index, Principle component analysis
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