Soil quality estimation using environmental covariates and predictive models: an example from tropical soils of Nigeria

Ecological Processes

Table 5 Sensitivity index and efficiency ratio between each soil quality index value and soil indicators

Indicators/indices	MDS_L	MDS_NL	TDS_L	TDS_NL
Pearson correlation
pH			− 0.425**	− 0.411**
SOC	0.808**	0.934**	0.683**	0.745**
K_s			0.153 ^NS	0.176 ^NS
\(\rho_{b}\)			− 0.592**	− 0.602**
MC			0.445**	0.480**
Porosity			0.473**	0.408**
MWD	0.230*	0.406**	0.140 ^NS	0.439**
SSI	0.485**	0.690**	0.378**	0.339**
Sand	− 0.127^NS	− 0.064 ^NS	− 0.137	− 0.337**
Silt			0.195*	0.289**
Clay			− 0.044 ^NS	0.192*
ER (%) values	75	75	72.72	90.90
ER rank	2	2	3	1
SI values	8.60	3.38	2.67	2.48
SI rank	1	2	3	4
Rank scores	3	4	6	5
Final ranking	1	2	4	3

NS Not significant
* and ** mean correlation is significant at the 1% and 5% level respectively (2-tailed)