Application of Geostatistical Techniques in Spatial Variability Mapping of Soil Fertility– A Review

Abstract

Soil fertility is one of the key factors of agricultural crop production. Spatiotemporal database and digital mapping of soil fertility at different scale from field level to
country level has tremendous utility in development of agricultural sector. Geo-statistical
tools in geographic information system (GIS) have potentiality to describe the spatial pattern
using semiovariogram analysis and to carry out spatial interpolation of soil properties
including macronutrients and micronutrients by kriging methods. Now–a-days, several
kriging techniques like ordinary kriging, universal kriging, co-kriging, multivariate kriging,
indicator kriging etc. are used for spatial interpolation of soil fertility parameter, based on
nature and interrelationship of soil attributes and other external information. Farm and district
level nutrient mapping are being effectively utilized for precision farming, increased input
use efficiency, enhanced agricultural productivity, sustainability and environmental safety as
well as policy making for fertilizer allocation in different states.