The Spatial Variability of Soil Profile Physical Properties in a Flat Black Soil

The spatial variability of soil property is one of the important soil features. Soil bulk density,porosity,field water content and saturation water content were tested on samples collected from a flat arable black soil region in field scale,and description statistics was used to analyze the spatial variability of the selected soil physical properties. The results showed that the variation coefficient of soil bulk density,porosity,field water content and saturation water content in the vertical direction of the soil profile were less than 10%,suggesting that these properties were in weak variability. In addition,selected soil physical properties had weak variability in horizontal direction in the 20 cm ~ 140 cm layer,with an exception of field water content which showed moderate variability in the 20 cm ~ 40 cm layer. Thus in the field scale,soil physical properties were relative stable in the flat black soil region,which would be helpful for soil sampling in the investigating spatial variability of soil physical properties.