Limited Spatial Transferability of the Relationships Between Kriging Variance and Soil Sampling Spacing in Some Grasslands of Ireland: Implications for Sampling Design

Abstract

Sampling plays an important role in acquiring precise soil information required in modern agricultural production worldwide, which determines both the cost and quality of final soil mapping products. For sampling design, it has been proposed possibile to transfer the relationships between kriging variance and sampling grid spacing from an area with existing information to other areas with similar soil-forming environments. However, this approach is challenged in practice because of two problems: i) different population variograms among similar areas and ii) sampling errors in estimated variograms. This study evaluated the effects of these two problems on the transferability of the relationships between kriging variance and sampling grid spacing, by using spatial data simulated with three variograms and soil samples collected from four grasslands in Ireland with similar soil-forming environments. Results showed that the variograms suggested by different samples collected with the same grid spacing in the same or similar areas were different, leading to a range of mean kriging variance (MKV) for each grid spacing. With increasing grid spacing, the variation of MKV for a specific grid spacing increased and deviated more from the MKV generated using the population variograms. As a result, the spatial transferability of the relationships between kriging variance and grid spacing for sampling design was limited.