Description and spatial inference of soil drainage using matrix soil colours in the Lower Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia.

ABSTRACT: Soil colour is often used as a general purpose indicator of internal soil drainage. In this study we developed a necessarily simple model of soil drainage which combines the tacit knowledge of the soil surveyor with observed matrix soil colour descriptions. From built up knowledge of the soils in our Lower Hunter Valley, New South Wales study area, the sequence of well-draining → imperfectly draining → poorly draining soils generally follows the colour sequence of red → brown → yellow → grey → black soil matrix colours. For each soil profile, soil drainage is estimated somewhere on a continuous index of between 5 (very well drained) and 1 (very poorly drained) based on the proximity or similarity to reference soil colours of the soil drainage colour sequence. The estimation of drainage ind

SUBMITTER: Malone BP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5907776 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature