Investigation for decreasing the need for expert knowledge for soil survey in Adana province

Detailed soil maps are one of the most important natural resources investigations for Turkey which should be carried out in the coming years. In order to improve the quality, minimize the need for expert knowledge and decrease the amount of time required for soil surveys; new techniques and methods are investigated for every stage of soil survey in this research. The study was carried out in an area of 100 km2 in Yumurtalık province of Adana, Turkey. Stereo WorldView-2 digital stereoscopic satellite data was used as basic cartographic material, in order to identify the profile locations for the defination of the soil series that are present in the study area. A combined four stage new approach was developed using physiographic units, geological map, general soil map and slope map derived from the topographic map. 17 soil series that were determined and these series were classified as Inceptisol, Vertisols and Entisols according to Soil Taxonomy. Stereoscopic interpretation of the WorldView-2 data used for delineation of the soil boundaries and were verified checked in field to identify soil series and phases. At this stage of soil survey, possibility of minimizing expert knowledge, data collected with the grid method for the test area, geostatistical models were used. Data collected with the grid method provided the most suitable semivariograms identified for each feature map created. However, the map obtained from modeling of soil properties in three different depths at each point, proved to be not susccessful. Therefore, it is concluded that determination of soil mapping units by using existing geostatistical methods proved to be not successful due to the nature of soils which are affected by large number of variables.