The Effect of Intra-Unit Variability of the Detailed Soil Map on the Results of Qualitative Land Suitability Evaluation (A Case Study: Main Irrigated Crops in the Shahrekord Plain)

In order to study the precision of qualitative land suitability classification method for main irrigated crops (i.e. potato, sugar beet, wheat and alfalfa) in the Shahrekord plain, qualitative land suitability maps were obtained for all the studied crops according to representative pedon analysis using simple limitation method. In the next step, a regular grid sampling consisting of 100 sample points with a distance of 375 m was designed. Then all required analyses were done to recognize the suitability class of these sites for each land use. Finally, land suitability results for all the observation points in each map unit were compared with the results of its representative pedon. The results showed the average of measured compatibility between representative pedon and other observation points in each map unit in class and subclass levels was about 60 % and 38 %, respectively. Due to the generalization of representative pedon analyses to all unit area, the use of soil map units as land suitability units may lead to unsatisfactory results. Therefore, the use of representative pedon is not recommended in sustainable land management and precision agriculture. However, new techniques like geostatistics can be used to improve the conventional soil mapping methods.