Indian Journal of Soil Conservation
Year : 2008, Volume : 36, Issue : 1
First page : ( 16) Last page : ( 21)
Print ISSN : 0970-3349.

Spatial variation of soil strength in small hilly watershed of Shivalik-Himalayan region in India

Bhattacharyya P.*, Senior Scientist, Tiwari A.K, Bhatt V.K

Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute Research Centre, Chandigarh, India.

^*Present and corresponding address: Soil Science and Microbiology; CRRI, Cuttack; Orissa.

Received:  February,  2007; Revised:  April,  2008; Accepted:  May,  2008.

Abstract

The spatial variation ofsoil strength at different soil depths in agricultural field and non-arable hilly catchment was studied in Torrifluventic Haplustepts soil subgroup at Mandhala watershed in Shivalik-Himalayan region in India. Results showed that ordinary point Kriging interpolation technique was observed to be better as compared to Polynomial Regression and Nearest Neighbour method. Results also revealed that soil compaction values were generally low at field boundary in agricultural fields. High penetration resistance was observed in high elevation at hilly catchment. Variograms revealed that 26 m and 30 m sampling distance would be good enough for interpolating soil strength values all over the field up to 30 and 15 cm soil depth for agricultural field and hilly catchment areas, respectively, in the study area.

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Keywords

Spatial variation, Soil strength, Kriging, Variogram, Watershed.

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