The pace of land degradation has almost doubled across the Western Ghats of India, one of the world's ‘hotspots’ for biodiversity, owing to soil erosion, mining, and rampant urbanization. The arising nutrient depletion leading to land degradation is thus a serious threat to agricultural sustainability in this region. Delineation of spatial soil property maps for nutrient management is an effective strategy for precision agriculture. The present investigation was carried out in North Goa District in Western Ghats, a seldom researched domain in the Indian coastal region. The study involved spatial array analysis of soil properties of 383 georeferenced soil samples and used fuzzy k‐means clustering for delineation of management zones (MZs). Soils were found highly acidic with low available N, P, and medium exchangeable K with a widespread Zn, Cu, and Fe deficiency and sporadic salinity. Soil properties exhibited low to high levels of skewness except for soil pH and Mn. Correlations between soil pH and K, Zn, and Mn, between EC and Fe, between soil organic carbon (SOC) and N, P, K, Cu, and Mn was positive and significant (P = 0.01). Geostatistical analysis revealed varied distribution pattern for soil properties with Gaussian (pH, P, and Cu), spherical (EC), stable (SOC), hole effect (N), K‐Bessel (K and Fe), exponential (Zn), and circular (Mn) as best fit semivariogram models with weak and strong spatial dependence. The spatial variability was mapped, and two MZs were delineated. The developed maps will be crucial in site‐specific nutrient management for agricultural and ecological sustainability in the Western Ghats of India.

中文翻译：

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印度沿海西高止山脉的土壤测绘和管理区划

由于水土流失，采矿和城市化猖。，整个印度西高止山脉（世界上生物多样性的“热点”之一）的土地退化速度几乎翻了一番。因此，造成土地退化的养分枯竭是对该地区农业可持续性的严重威胁。勾勒空间土壤特性图用于养分管理是精确农业的有效策略。目前的调查是在西高止山脉的北果阿地区进行的，这是印度沿海地区很少研究的领域。该研究涉及对383个地理参考土壤样品的土壤特性进行空间阵列分析，并使用了模糊K-表示聚类，用于划分管理区域（MZ）。土壤被发现具有高酸性，可利用的氮，磷低，可交换的钾含量低，普遍缺乏锌，铜和铁，且盐分零散。除土壤pH和Mn以外，土壤特性均表现出低到高的偏度。土壤pH与K，Zn和Mn，EC和Fe之间，土壤有机碳（SOC）与N，P，K，Cu和Mn之间的相关为正且显着（P = 0.01）。地统计分析揭示了土壤特性的各种分布模式，包括高斯（pH，P和Cu），球形（EC），稳定（SOC），空穴效应（N），K贝塞尔（K和Fe），指数（Zn），和圆形（Mn）作为具有弱和强空间相关性的最佳拟合半变异函数模型。绘制了空间变异性，并划定了两个MZ。绘制的地图对于印度西高止山脉的农业和生态可持续性而言，对于特定地点的养分管理至关重要。