Abstract
The use of the apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) to map soil characteristics such as clay content is mostly limited to the field scale because of field-specific random effects e.g. due to different management history. Soil conductivity maps that are continuous across field boundaries are however a prerequisite for mapping soil properties at the landscape scale. Therefore we propose a geostatistical framework for the homogenization of soil data across field boundaries, i. e. for “matching” adjacent ECa surveys together. It consists of transforming field-specific data by minimizing the discontinuity error of an interpolator of the target variable on adjacent fields. We apply the homogenization technique in a case study in Central Germany, which shows that the proposed scaling technique is able to remove field-specific effects. A simulation study with known, simulated field-specific effects is performed to test the validity of the technique. It confirms that the algorithm is able to reduce discontinuity errors, yielding a homogenized ECa surface that is continuous across field boundaries. It identifies linear scaling parameters between fields apparently with a small bias. Spatial decorrelation between adjacent fields may lead to significant estimation uncertainties, depending on the distance between ECa survey traces and measurement error.
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