Abstract
A soil scientist in most instances can only measure and describe soil at a few points in a landscape; at each location, he has ways to describe and measure soil features. These may be based on field observations, e.g. presence of mottling in the subsoil, or a sample may be collected for subsequent laboratory analysis, e.g. clay content. Many different measurements of soil properties can be made, and each of these has what we call a measurement scale which in simplistic terms tells us whether it is measured as numbers, e.g. clay content, or categories, e.g. texture class.
“Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.”
W. Edwards Deming
American Engineer (1900–1993)
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Bishop, T.F.A., McBratney, A.B. (2018). Soil Statistical Description and Measurement Scales. In: McBratney, A., Minasny, B., Stockmann, U. (eds) Pedometrics. Progress in Soil Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63439-5_2
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