Blog Posts

“Mortagne-reeds and elms refracted in the ball” by Mo is licensed under CC BY 2.0 We all want to know the future, but what is the best way to predict what will happen? Assuming we don’t have a crystal ball or a time machine, we have to find patterns in the available information and use…

Proponents of digital soil mapping sometimes criticize traditional soil mapping for using a discrete data model to describe a continuous surface (field) and lacking a quantified estimation of error. Although most of my research is on digital soil mapping, I like to give due credit to the accomplishments of traditional soil mapping. I understand the need for…

We always want to avoid error, but it is a fact of life. At the foundation of analysis and modelling, we rely on measurements. Because errors in measurements are inescapable, the important question is how much does the error affect the result? I start the conversation by explaining what measurement error is, including its component…

Eugene W. Hilgard(Online Archive of California) From as early as 500 BCE, humans have recognized that some things vary together in space. This is essentially correlation, but the spatial aspect sometimes adds a special twist. Also, correlation requires evaluation of quantitative data, while this concept is not limited to quantitative characteristics. For example, Diophanes of…

Water erosion removing good soil from a field. Soil scientists like to remind everyone that “soil is not dirt.” They are of course, right, but what is the difference? I would argue that an important distinction is a question of where. Is it somewhere that it is useful, fulfilling its role as supporting life and…