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Dep. of Water Resources Engineering, Univ. of Lund, Box 118, S-221 00 Lund, Sweden
Rural Engineering Research Center, B.P. no. 10, Ariana 2080, Tunis, Tunisia
Dep. of Civil Engineering (SUIKO), Kyushu Univ., 6-10-1 Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812, Japan
*Corresponding author.
ABSTRACT
Experimental variograms may be used to infer the spatial structure of geochemical elements. This information is needed to control the transport of toxic elements through the unsaturated zone. Geostatistical properties of total soil contents for 20 major and trace elements were investigated for a soil in northern Tunisia. The analysis showed that all elements have a clear spatial structure. Several elements displayed a significant trend that was removed by fitting the raw data to a second-order polynomial. Variograms for the residuals showed that most elements reach sills at ranges of
10 to 20 m. Exceptions are Co with a range of
1 m and Zn with a range of
5 m. The elements Be and Sr have larger ranges of
30 m. Calculation of direction-dependent variograms showed that most elements depended on direction. Autocorrelation analysis of the residuals indicated no spatial correlation. The ranges found in this study can be used in sampling strategies to obtain independent values of geochemical elements.
Received for publication April 30, 1992.
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