Abstract
Modeling Soil Acidity in Switzerland Using Spatial Statistics Tools
Track: Modeling
Author
Spatial modelling of the distribution of tree species has been an active area of research. Information on species and habitat distribution is needed for many purposes, e.g. to assess the consequences of global change. (Geo)statistical models are developed to relate the geographical distribution of species to ecological parameters. The most common predictive variables are climate and derived topographic variables. Although soil properties are important for tree species, they are often neglected because accurate data are lacking.
Within the framework of the swiss national forest inventory more than 10'000 soil samples have been collected across Switzerland and analyzed regarding acidity. The main objective of this study was to generate a soil acidity map for Switzerland. Besides geostatistical methods like kriging we have applied different regression techniques using the new spatial statistics tools in ArcGIS Desktop 9.3. The results of the different techniques are evaluated and discussed.
Andri Baltensweiler
Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research
Zuercherstr. 111
Birmensdorf, Zurich 8903
Switzerland
Phone: +41 44 739 24 96
E-mail: andri.baltensweiler@wsl.ch
Stephan Zimmermann
Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research
Zuercherstr. 111
Birmensdorf, Zurich 8903
Switzerland
Phone: +41 44 739 22 66
E-mail: stefan.zimmermann@wsl.ch