Open soil property maps for the farm of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka
Description
The database consists of soil property maps of up to 30 cm depth for the farm of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka. It includes interpolated soil property maps for 9 soil physicochemical properties (pH, bulk density (g/cm3), electrical conductivity (μs/cm), organic carbon content (%), volumetric moisture content (VMC) at 0.33 bars level (mm/ mm), VMC at 15 bars level (mm/ mm), sand (%), silt (%) and clay content (%)) under three standard depth layers (0-5 cm, 5-15 cm and 15-30 cm). All the maps are available in TIF format while the error data are available in csv format. This data provides complementary soil information of the farm of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka at finer resolution which can be effectively used for proper land use planning, crop simulations and for other agricultural decision making.
Files
Steps to reproduce
For generating interpolated maps, a total of 86 composite soil samples were collected from 43 locations of the study area at two depths (0-15 cm and 15-30 cm) and analyzed using the standard methods. Different interpolation methods can generate different results; therefore, several interpolation methods were tested before selection of the interpolation method for mapping. According to the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), the Empirical Bayesian Kriging method was used to interpolate soil pH and electrical conductivity data while the Local Polynomial interpolation method was used for other soil properties.