Developing and testing soil correlation matrix to assess the spatial variation of soil resource in Indonesia

Abstract

Soil survey and mapping in Indonesia uses 3 different soil classification systems simultaneously. These systems are the Soil Taxonomy of the United States Department of Agriculture (ST), World Reference Base (WRB) of the Food and Agriculture Organization, and Indonesian Soil Classification (ISC). The remaining challenge is to harmonize and interpret soil information among these systems. This study aimed to develop a correlation matrix to correlate soil names and to test it in Sukabumi Regency, West Java. The matrix was developed based on the peculiar soil properties which differentiate one soil class from another. Based on the results, in Indonesia, there are 10 soil orders dominant from 12 soil orders of ST System, 17 RSGs from 32 RSGs in WRB system (2015), and 16 soil types of ISC System (2016). Testing in Sukabumi showed a good example of using the correlation matrix to develop a WRB based soil type map. The correlation matrix was found helpful in developing the WRB soil map in a regional scale.