Soil Quality Assessment Through Minimum Data Set Under Different Land Uses of Submontane Punjab

Soil quality degradation is a major challenge in submontane Punjab. This poses a great threat to soil quality of this particular area. Thus, a study was conducted to address the selection of most appropriate soil quality indicators and to know the status of soil quality in the area under different land uses. Principal component analysis (PCA) approach was employed to get the minimum data set. Geo-referred soil samples were collected from five different land uses and analyzed for different physical, chemical, and biological attributes. The PCA was performed which screened out the five principal components (PCs) with eigenvalue >1. Soil quality index was highest under the land use forest (0.80) followed by grasses (0.79), horticulture (0.78), cultivated (0.75), and bare (0.67). The organic carbon contributed maximum to soil quality (28.5%) followed by available K (19.4%), electrical conductivity (18.3%), K-factor of universal soil loss equation (USLE) (14.9%), plant available water (10.5%), and clay (8.3%). Conclusively, the study area falls under the medium category of soil quality.