The paper tries to analyse soil properties around three sampled gully erosion sites that cut across different land use in the study area. The aim of the study is to determine the soil physical and chemical properties of the major gully sites cutting across different land use in Gombe metropolis. Data used in this study were derived from soil samples collected from the gully sites and other secondary sources. Three sampled gully profiles were purposively selected for the study. Soil samples were collected at 0-0.30, 0.30-1.0, 1-2, 2-3, 3-4 and 4> meters respectively along the gully wall layers where there are changes in soil types based on the textural characteristics. Soil samples collected were taken to the laboratory for analysis, different soil physical and chemical properties were tested and results obtained. The difference in the soils physical and chemical properties between the three different gully erosion sites were analyzed using the analysis of (variance ANOVA) with the aid of statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 16.0. In all the different land use areas studied, the soil is mostly loose and very porous dominated by sandy material with low proportion of silt and clay. Atterberg limits are generally low in all the land use areas which resulted into the weakness of the soil, soil chemical properties and bulk density are low and soil particles are not consolidated, therefore, detached easily when impacted by flood water. This was what facilitates the development of deep and wide gullies found in most areas.

A comparative study was conducted among three different cropping areas. Samples were collected from each area and are taken to laboratory for analysis, and variables such as organic carbon, available phosphorous, total nitrogen, PH, electrical conductivity, particle size distribution, exchangeable bases and CEC were tested. The statistical analysis is used to obtain the mean values of the result obtained from each variable. A fertility rating score was design using the evaluation key to determine the fertility level under each cultivation area. The score shows that score one is extremely low, score two very low, and score three moderately low. The total scores obtained from each cropping area are summed up to obtain the total score from each land.

Keywords: Kerau, kriging,semivariograms, variation, vertisols, interpolation . Qiu et al [9] studied variation in the properties of a silt loam on a 10ha paddock and found that coefficient of variability of organic matter and Phosphorus where moderate (range of 16% to 33%), with both exhibiting strong spatial dependence and the Gaussian model provided the best fit for the semivariograms. Spatial distribution maps of both properties measured also showed that organic matter was low in the southwest and high in the northeast corner of the paddock while Phosphorus was high along the edges of the paddock. However, these studies were not on a vertisol. Moreover, these studies do not consider variability on smaller farms that fall within field scale of a hectare or less, typically found in Nigeria. The fact remains that the shorter the sampling range the less the variation [12]