A geostatistical approach for modelling and combining spatial data with different support

Abstract

The paper proposes a geostatistical framework to solve the issues of heterogeneous support for spatial estimation. Apparent soil electrical conductivity (ECₐ) was measured in a field cropped with San Marzano tomato using a multiple frequency electromagnetic profiler with 6 operating frequencies. Mixed support kriging was used to estimate ECₐ taking into account the change of support. The method includes punctual kriging with the error being the dispersion variance associated with each frequency. The individual ECₐ maps were weighted by the dispersion variance to obtain a map which was used for field partition in management zones.