Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 MSc, Sciences and Researches Unit, Islamic Azad University
2 Professor, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization
Abstract
Due to the complexity and wide changes in wetlands' environmental factors, pollution monitoring, protection and control of soil quality is deemed to be necessary. Therefore, understanding the spatial distribution of characteristics including the concentration of heavy metals is of great importance. In this context, this study aimed to investigate the spatial variations of copper element as for some chemical properties of Anzali wetland's soil. In this regard, sampling was conducted at 48 sites of the wetland topsoil and copper concentration, pH and cation exchange capacity of their soil was determined. Inverse distance estimators, polynomials, five spline functions including regularized spline, tension spline, multi quadratic function spline, inverse multi quadratic function, thin plates spline and universal kriging and combination of above mentioned and fuzzy methods using cross-evaluation method have been examined in this research. Also, assessment criteria of Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Bias Error (MBE) and Model Efficiency (EF) were used to compare the differences between observed and estimated values and determine the appropriate method. Based on the results, fuzzy tension spline method using the auxiliary variable of cation exchange capacity (least MAE=5.64, percent error=90/11 and EF=0.3) was chosen as the preferred method in copper's distribution mapping. This method decreased the mean absolute error of 50, 56, 56, 53, 53 and 50 percent compared with techniques such as inverse distance estimators, local polynomials, universal polynomials, spline, universal kriging and fuzzy ordinary kriging, respectively. Furthermore, comparing maximum and average values of copper's allowable concentration in this study with the same values in Poland and Australia's soil standards showed that nowadays given to the data obtained from samples, the level of copper element in Anzali wetland's soil is less than the critical level.
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