Geostatistical Regularities of Soil Acidity Differentiation on Forest, Arable, And Meadow Lands in The Berezina River Valley (Belarus)

Abstract

This article investigates the regularities of the spatial distribution of soil acidity on a detailed scale. А description of the soil cover and the rationale for selecting key areas within forest, arable, and meadow lands in the Berezina River valley (Belarus) are provided. A universal scheme of geostatistical diagnostics of soil cover properties is proposed, describing theoretical aspects of geostatistics, which can be applied to solve soil-geographical problems in various specialized contexts. Variogram analysis was employed to ascertain the distances at which similar soil-geochemical processes occur within the studied landscapes. In forested areas, a reduction in dispersion is observed at distances of 140–180 m, which aligns with the slope length and the spacing between ravines with temporary watercourses. Acidity on arable lands is characterized by high dispersion values at small distances (70–80 m) and decreases at large distances (more than 250 m). Meadow lands show a sharp jump in dispersion at distances of 130–170 m, which corresponds to the width of floodplain ridges. For quantitative assessment of variation, we propose a new indicator “variation per meter”, which allows us to move from comparisons of absolute values to relative ones, thus removing the influence of site size. The values obtained for the new indicator elucidate classical concepts regarding the distribution of soil acidity and the transformation of natural landscapes due to anthropogenic impact. The ”variation per meter” is approximately 2% for forest lands (minimum anthropogenic transformation), 0.1–0.2% for arable lands (maximum transformation), and about 1% for meadow lands (intermediate transformation).