Soil sampling for soil health assessment

Publication date: 06/08/2018
Extent: 20 pages

Contributions by: Skye Wills, Stephen Roecker and Candiss Williams, USDA-NRCS, USA; and Brian Murphy, Office of Environment and Heritage, Australia

Chapter synopsis: A successful soil health study or project requires thorough planning. Accurate results in soil health assessment can be difficult to obtain due to complications from spatial, temporal and managerial variability. A well-planned soil health sampling design will ensure that the resulting data are representative of the sample population and study objectives. This chapter focuses on three crucial stages of a successful soil health study: defining objectives and generating hypotheses, designing a suitable sampling plan and collecting data.

DOI: 10.19103/AS.2017.0033.18