Spatial prediction of soil organic carbon of Crete by using geostatistics

Organic carbon amount of the soil is one of the most important geochemical parameters for defining soil characterization and the accuracy of the distribution assessment of soil organic carbon (SOC) is a very important topic. Organic carbon distribution of Crete (Greece) has been predicted by using combination of LUCAS soil samples with local soil data and nine environmental predictors (slope, aspect, elevation, CORINE land-cover classification, parent material, texture, WRB soil classification, average temperature and precipitation) with Regression-Kriging method. Significant correlation between the covariates and the organic carbon dependent variable was found. According to the results, land-cover, elevation, soil type and precipitation were the dominant factors which were controlling SOC variation in Crete. Moreover, organic carbon distribution map of Crete was produced in the digital soil mapping perspective and mentioned final map has been compared with the OCTOP map, which is currently using for organic carbon based studies in Europe.