Investigating the Spatial Pattern of Chemical Properties of Forest Soil under Livestock Presence through Geo-Statistics(A Case study: Eastern Bandpey Forest -Babol)

The present study was conducted to evaluate the spatial variability of forest soil chemical features in Bandpeye Sharghi forest in Babol. In order to conduct this study, after a field visit in the district of Afrabon, an area with a concentrated livestock presence was identified. In order to investigate the chemical variables, a network of 50×50 meters was selected in a randomized-systematic manner in our case area (livestock place) toward the forest; then, 73 samples from a depth of 0-10 cm were taken from the centers of network to study variables like soil PH, organic carbon, lime, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in the laboratory. Six soil chemical variables were investigated and a plot of their kriging estimation was drawn using GS+ software (version 9). The results showed that only changes in soil PH and nitrogen are the same in various directions and a square grid can be used to study them. The analysis of variogram revealed that the soil PH and nitrogen variables had a spatial pattern which led to a strong structure considering the ratio of ceiling to the component effect of 0/90 and 0/83, respectively. The amount of these two variables is of lowest value in the eastern direction (livestock place). The accuracy of the estimates, the mean absolute error and the squared mean of errors for the two variables of soil PH and nitrogen were calculated as 0/163, 0/560, 0/195 and 0/221 respectively; the results indicated a high accuracy of the estimates of soil PH and nitrogen.