Development of technique to determine soil quality index for assessing soil condition

Abstract

An assessment of soil condition related to soil and soil use is still relies to soil type based on soil classification and land suitability class. Soil type and land suitability class cannot be used to evaluate soil condition/quality changes effectively. In many cases, soil type and land suitability class are remaining the same even there has been soil condition/quality change. Soil Quality Index (SQI) is the best solution to answer this circumstance. Two schemes proposed to determine SQI, i.e., Simple Scheme of SQI (SS-SQI) and Comprehensive Scheme of SQI (CS-SQI), both compose of few soil physical, soil chemical, and soil biology parameters with their own proportion then each soil properties are scored and finally summarized to get the total score. SS-SQI and CS-SQI consists of 13 and 20 soil properties, respectively. Field investigations supported by laboratorial analysis conducted at 48 locations in Banten Province, Indonesia. Results showed that average score of SS-SQI is similar or very close with average score of CS-SQI. The average SQI score is 4.486 and classified as slightly high. In the "numeral" form, SQI is easier, practical and much more sensitive used as a tool to monitor and evaluate change and dynamic of soil condition/quality.