For assessing of soil quality, the sensitive indicators can be used in land use managements. Monitoring all soil characteristics is costly and laborious therefore, limited soil characteristics for this mean are recommended. The purposes of this study were comparing seve
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For assessing of soil quality, the sensitive indicators can be used in land use managements. Monitoring all soil characteristics is costly and laborious therefore, limited soil characteristics for this mean are recommended. The purposes of this study were comparing several soil attributes of different land use types and determination of minimum effective soil characteristics on soil quality in Chughakhor Basin, Chaharmahal va Bakhtiari Province, Iran. To fulfill the objectives slope, land use and soil maps and Latin Hypercube strategy were used and locations of 125 composite and surficial soil samples were determined. After pretreatment of soil samples, 29 soil physical and chemical characteristics were measured using appropriate methods. The mean comparison of different land uses showed that mean weighted aggregate diameter, available water content, air content, Dexter index, organic carbon, particle organic carbon in macro aggregate, the proportion of particle organic carbon in macro to in micro aggregates, P, Fe and Cu contents values of land use types were in the order Orchards>cultivated areas>Good rangelands>Dry land areas>Weak rangelands. For determination of effective indicators in soil quality assessing, the principle component analysis and stepwise discriminant analysis are used. The soil characters like water stable aggregates, soil texture elements, proportion of particle organic carbon in macro to in micro aggregates and soil Cu and Zn concentrations as minimum data set for soil quality assessment.
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