TITLE:
Spatial Distribution of Soil Organic Matter and Soil Organic Carbon Stocks in Semi-Arid Area of Northeastern Syria
AUTHORS:
Hussam Hag Husein, Mohammad Mousa, Wahib Sahwan, Rupert Bäumler, Bernhard Lucke
KEYWORDS:
Soil Organic Carbon Stock, Semi-Arid, Semivariogram, Exponential Model, Flood Plain
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Resources,
Vol.10 No.12,
December
26,
2019
ABSTRACT: Although soil organic matter (SOM) forms a small portion of the soil body. Nevertheless, it is the
most important component of the soil ecosystem, as well as of the carbon global
cycle. In the semi-arid environment, there has been little research on the
spatial distribution of SOM and soil organic carbon (SOC) stock. In this study,
stratified random samples of total 30 soils were collected from two different
soil depth (topsoil, subsoil) of Al Balikh plain and used for mapping the
spatial variability of SOC and to estimating the SOC stock. The result showed
that the values were relatively homogenate, with the normal decreasing trend
with increasing the depth. The standard deviation (Std. D) for both SOC and SOC
stock indicates homogeneous and absence of outliers values, whereas the
coefficient of variation (C.V) indicates non-dispersion and clustering of
values around the average. SOC was 0.38%, 0.17% in topsoil and subsoil
respectively; the corresponding averages of SOC stock were 1.23 kg·m-2 and 1.14 kg·m-2 respectively, these values reflecting typical
characteristics of poor SOC semi-arid soil. The correlation between SOC and SOC
stock was (R2 = 0.996, p 2 = 0.941, p