Evaluation of Soil Disturbance Using Fuzzy Indicator Approach

Abstract

Soil disturbance is great problem and the evaluation of soil disturbance is very important for making decisions on agricultural and ecological management.  In this manuscript, a new method for potentially evaluating soil disturbance is described.  With this method the use of two indicators called “Disturbance Factor Simple (DFS)” and “Disturbance Factor Complex (DFC)” are calculated using soil parameters that are sensitive to soil disturbance.  For illustration of the methodology, a small computation was made using data collected from an experiment conducted at Fort Riley, KS, USA. Input data for computation included four soil parameters: Nitrogen, Carbon, Calcium, and Copper.  The results of computation of DFS showed the maximum values were observed in the topsoil (0-10cm). With increasing depth, the DFS values decrease.  The values calculated for Ca indicated that this DFS would be the most sensitive, while the DFS for copper would be more sensitive with increasing soil depth. The results of the computations of DFC showed that the DFCs at soil depths of 0-10 and 10-20 cm were very similar for all variants used in this research.  However, at a soil depth of 20-30 cm, the DFCs calculated for variant 3 was more sensitive, likely because it increased the importance of copper DFS in the calculations.