Explaining the Soil Quality Using Different Assessment Techniques

Table 8

Soil quality index (SQI) values of lands in the Nitisols and Luvisols based on a statistical model of normalized PCA.

Parameters	Lands in the Nitisols					Lands in the Luvisols
	PC1	PC2	PC3	PC4	PC5	PC1	PC2	PC3	PC4	PC5
Silt				0.011				−0.043
Clay
pH				−0.012		0.087
OC		0.027
TN									0.033
P
S	0.041							0.046
Ca						0.085
Mg	0.039						0.054
K
Na	0.04
K : Mg
CEC
PBS					0.007
B	0.042
Cu	0.039
Fe	−0.039
Mn	−0.04									−0.029
Zn			0.0244
	Nitisol normalized PCA-SQI = 0.36					Luvisol normalized PCA-SQI = 0.38

NB: Nitisol normalized PCA-SQI = (0.391 S + 0.391 Mg + 0.391 Na + 0.391 B + 0.391 Cu + 0.391 Fe + 0.391 Mn + 0.205 OC + 0.15 Zn + 0.088 Silt + 0.088 pH + 0.059 PBS)/(3.327) = 0.1175 S + 0.1175 Mg + 0.1175 Na + 0.1175 B + 0.1175 Cu + 0.1175 Fe + 0.1175 Mn + 0.0616 OC + 0.0451 Zn + 0.0265 Silt + 0.0265 pH + 0.0177 PBS = 0.36 = very low, Luvisol normalized PCA-SQI = (0.362 pH + 0.362 Ca + 0.164 Mg + 0.125 Silt + 0.125 S + 0.092 TN + 0.067 Mn)/(1.297) = 0.279 pH + 0.279 Ca + 0.126 Mg + 0.096 Silt + 0.096 S + 0.071 TN + 0.052 Mn = 0.38 = low.