Spatial heterogeneity of available zinc, copper, and manganese in Xiangcheng tobacco planting fields, Henan province, China

Geostatistical methods were used in combina-tion with geographical information system (GIS) technol-ogy to analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of available zinc, copper, and manganese in the Xiangcheng tobacco planting fields, Henan province, China. Analysis of the isotropic variogram indicated that the Zn semivar-iogram was well described with the Gaussian model, with the distance of spatial dependence being 900.7 m; while the Mn semivariogram was well described with spherical models, with the distance of spatial dependence being 14 060 m; and, the Cu semivariogram was well described with exponential models, with the distance of spatial dependence being 27 860.7 m. Mn and Zn were strongly spatially dependent, with the C0/sill being 0.014 and 0.147 in this given region; while Cu was moderately spatially dependent, with the C0/sill being 0.3528. With the kriging analysis, the spatial distribution maps of contents of these three trace elements in the Xiangcheng tobacco planting regions was drawn with the Arcview software. It was found that the soils with higher content of Mn were mainly distributed in the high mountains of the southern part of the given regions, while the soils with higher content of Cu were mainly distributed in the south, decreasing from the south to the north. The soil with contents of Zn in the range of 0.76-1.33 mg/kg existed in the high mountains of the west and middle parts of the investigated regions, accounting for 76.11% of the whole area.