article · Heliyon
Researchers evaluated soil sustainability in Kenya's Kakia-Esamburmbur catchment across forest land, crop land, and grass land. They compared an additive soil quality index using 23 indicators against a weighted index reduced to ten key indicators via principal component analysis. At a depth of 20 centimetres, general soil traits did not differ significantly across the catchment, which overall fell into a medium soil quality rating. Forest land recorded the highest soil quality index, followed by crop land and grass land. The weighted index demonstrated greater sensitivity to changes than the additive method. Cation exchange capacity and bulk density were the largest contributors among the key indicators. By identifying ten critical parameters, this approach reduces the time and cost required for intensive laboratory work during long-term soil quality monitoring.
Declining soil quality threatens agricultural yields and watershed stability. Traditional laboratory soil assessments are costly and time-consuming because they measure dozens of variables. Demonstrating that ten key indicators can reliably reflect soil health allows land managers and environmental monitors to evaluate soil degradation more rapidly and affordably, supporting better conservation planning in vulnerable agricultural catchments.
The findings present an applied and tested methodology that streamlines soil testing by focusing on ten critical indicators rather than extensive indicator sets. Environmental consultancies, soil testing laboratories, and watershed management programmes could adopt this framework to cut down testing costs and turnaround times. As a catchment-specific evaluation, the work remains an applied research model requiring further adaptation before it can become a standardised commercial testing protocol.
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Land and water degradation caused by soil erosion and climate change pose major environmental threats, particularly in agricultural watersheds. Soil erosion in a catchment leads to low crop yields due to declining soil quality (SQ), productivity and sustainability. However, very few studies have been done to assess soil health in Kenya, and none in Narok County. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the soil sustainability status in Kakia-Esamburmbur catchment, based on the identification of key indicators (IKI) from a large dataset (LDS) of 23 indicators, across three land use types designated as grass land (GL), crop land (CL) and forest land (FL). To achieve the stated objective, two soil quality indexing methods were employed: the Additive Soil Quality Index (A-SQI) using the LDS; and the Weighted Soil Quality Index (W-SQI) using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) as a reduction tool to obtain the IKI set. The results show that at a depth of 20 cm, the catchment's soils characteristics did not differ significantly. The two methods (A-SQI and W-SQI) resulted in FL having the highest SQI mean values (0.61, 0.57), followed by CL (0.59, 0.55), while the lowest SQI mean value was recorded in GL (0.58, 0.53). Additionally, the sensitivity analysis showed W-SQI as the most sensitive and superior method in the evaluation of SQI changes due to its high sensitivity and coefficient of variation (CV), at 2.25 and >12 %, respectively. Among the ten IKI, CEC made the greatest contribution to SQ (18.68 %), followed by BD (15.61 %), BIR (14.71 %), Mg (14.26 %), MBN (8.30 %), MBC (8.26 %), Sand (6.77 %), Moisture (5.75 %), TOC (5.16 %), and PMN (2.63 %). The findings show that the catchment belongs to the "medium" category of SQ. The IKI can help save time and reduce the cost of intensive lab works for temporal assessment and monitoring of the effects of different land use on SQ.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e25611
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