The Spatial Variability of Soil Dehydrogenase Activity: a Survey in Urban Soils

Abstract

Information on soil microorganisms and their activity used to determine microbiological characteristics are very important for soil quality and productivity. Studies of enzyme activities provide information on the biochemical processes occurring in soil. There is growing evidence that soil biological parameters may be potential and sensitive indicators of soil ecological conditions and soil management. Soil microbiological parameters may be evaluated statistically due to application of geostatistical methods to soil science. Measurement of soil dehydrogenase activity (DHA) has been used to establish indices of soil microbiological activity. The objective of this study was to assess the spatial variability of the DHA using the geostatistics in the topsoils of an urban area. DHA along a transect in an urban area was determined using 39 soil samples from the upper 20 cm of soil varied from 10.7-258.4 μg TPF g-1 soil respectively. The spherical model fits the best semivariogram model for DHA and exhibited spatial dependence with range of influence of approximately 48.2 km.