A new study titled “Better management zoning with elevation than with three soil classifications in a periodically waterlogged plot” has been published as a result of collaboration among several Hungarian Universities and the HUN-REN ATK Institute for Soil Sciences. The study compares the alignment of polygons derived from three different soil classification systems—USDA Soil Taxonomy, the genetic-based Hungarian Soil Classification System, and WRB—against the patterns of elevation and mean NDVI in a slightly saline alluvial cropland. The primary objective of the research was to delineate potential management zones.
The study was conducted in Dunavecse, the largest formerly saline, currently cultivated cropland in Hungary (0.9 km²). Within this area, 85 undisturbed, 1-meter-deep soil profiles were sampled, described, and classified using a 100 × 100 m sampling grid.
Polygon alignment was assessed using both qualitative methods and landscape metric analyses. The comparison of soil maps generated from different classification systems revealed that, based on north–south orientation (the orientation of highs/lows), length, perimeter, area, aggregation and interspersion/juxtaposition of polygons, USDA Soil Taxonomy exhibited the best performance. The Hungarian Soil Classification System showed an intermediate performance, whereas the WRB classification resulted in a highly fragmented pattern.
One of the key findings of the study was that elevation, considered as a background variable, allowed for a more accurate and reliable delineation of management zones than any of the soil classification systems. By analyzing the scatterplots of elevation versus mean NDVI and elevation versus the 10-year NDVI range, a threshold elevation of 95.47 m was identified. This threshold effectively separated the more productive, less variable zone from the lower-lying, less productive, periodically waterlogged, and more uncertain zone.
These findings highlight that for precision agriculture and sustainable land use, incorporating topographic and vegetation data may provide a more effective approach than relying solely on soil classification-based delineation.
The study was authored by researchers from the HUN-REN ATK Institute for Soil Sciences, in collaboration with scientists from the University of Debrecen, the University of Pécs, and the University of Sopron.
Tibor Tóth, Szilárd Szabó, Tibor Novák, Szabolcs Czigány, Mihály Kocsis, András Makó, Bence Gallai, Mátyás Árvai, János Mészáros, Kitti Balog: Better management zoning with elevation than with three soil classifications in a periodically waterlogged plot,, Geoderma Regional,, Volume 40, 2025, e00927, ISSN 2352-0094, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geodrs.2025.e00927.
