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Abstract:A common strategy for ameliorating soil acidity is the application of agricultural lime. However, this measure is hampered by the lack of high resolution soil maps that can enable lime application according to the spatial variability of soil pH in an area. Therefore, this study was carried out to map soil acidity in South Eastern Zambia. The objective of the study was to apply geostatistical procedures to mapping soil acidity in the country. Ordinary kriging was performed on a set of 119 soil samples collected from the 0-20 cm soil layer whose pH was determined by the electrometric method. The kriging model that was developed was found to be satisfactory with low prediction errors (root mean square error 0.36). Thus, the map produced could be used to draw up strategies for management of soil acidity in the area.

This paper presents results of a landform classification of a section of the Chongwe-Rufunsa area, Zambia. The objective of the study was to separate the landscape into landform classes that indicate or suggest marked differences with respect to soil properties and agricultural suitability. Terrain attributes derived from a digital elevation model were overlaid using cell statistics to generate a landform map with five classes. The generated landform map had an overall classification accuracy of 73.51%. The landform map provided a base for benchmark soil sampling for ongoing research on digital soil mapping.