AbstractSustainable agriculture comes by employing spatial assessment technology for soil, water and the environment;
to get adequate and safe food. The focal point of the study is to push agricultural production, by assessing soil health based on several inputs of physiochemical properties and elements concentration. In this regard, the following
results were revealed: The study area is divided into five physiographic units, namely Chalky Plain, Peni- Plain,
Sand Sheets, Wadi El-Obiyeid and Playa. On the overall level of study, the soil quality index(SQI)results were a
reflection of 15 factors of the soils physiochemical properties and elements. It also confirmed that the area is capable of cultivation after treating several factors. The most important factors that negatively affected the quality of the soil were the most important of which was the organic carbon OC, as well as the proportions of available elements. Where the proportions of the soil quality for the area ranged between 80 to 93.33%. Strong and significant correlation coefficient between SQ and other soil variables were obtained their strengths and quantitative of relationships were determined from R2 data as: bulk density R2=0.9784, OC R2=0.6596, pH soil R2=0.9949, ESP R2=0.7156, total N R2=0.7895, K R2= 0.9409, Mg R2= 0.8937, Ca R2= 0.9278, Fe R2=0.8946, Mn R2=0.9710, Zn R2=0.9819, Cu R2=0.8791 and Cd R2=0.9979.The aforementioned results coincided with a previous work which presented no significant correlation coefficients between SQ and Ni R2=0.4884 and Pb R2= 0.3661.
Key Words: Soil Quality Index, Soil Health, physic-chemical Soil Property Database, Soil Elements Database |
[1] Department of Soil Chemistry and Physical, Soils, Water and Environment Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center (ARC), Egypt.
[2] Department of Soil Survey and Classification, Soils, Water and Environment Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center (ARC), Egypt. * Corresponding Author. E-mail : aboukota.m@gmail.com | Received: 2021/03/09 Revised: 2021/04/09 Accepted: 2021/0709
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