PAPER TITLE :ASSESSMENT OF FACTORS AFFECTING SOIL MOISTURE FOR THREE AGRICULTURAL LANDUSE MANAGEMENT USING REGRESSION APPROACH

JOURNAL OF EARTH AND ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH | VOLUME 1 NUMBER 1 2018

Paper Details

  • Author(s) : Adoga P. A. and Akumaga Uvirkaa
  • Abstract:

The study examines the major factors affecting soil moisture characteristics of three agricultural landuse management in Akwanga. Six sites were selected to measure infiltration and runoff amount on three landuse types. The three sampled landuse types are: farmland, fallow plot and orchard. Data was collected using 17 rainfall events in 3 months (July to September) to cover ten variables which are infiltration amount, runoff from plot, rainfall, slope, land use coefficient, soil porosity, soil moisture, sand, silt and clay. The data
were analyzed using correlation and regression analysis. The results of the study shows that there is asignificant relationship between the amount of soil moisture with infiltration, run off, landuse coefficient, soil porosity and silt characteristics of the landuse types. Our results indicates that the regression model developed in this study can predict the observed soil moisture reasonably well in our study area. Infact, the total measured soil moisture in the study area was 55.5% while our model predicted total soil moisture is 54.17%. These results further indicates that these major factors identified jointly explained the variation in the amount of soil moisture in the region with the r2 of 0.95 that can predict soil moisture amount in this study area. These results are very important for policy makers and practicing farmers because this model can be used for deficit irrigation scheduling especially during the critical plant growth stages..