Response of Soil Sustainability Indicators to the Changing Weather Patterns in Calabar, Southern Nigeria

The response of soil properties to changing weather variables revealed soil-environment functionality that is used to know whether soil quality is improving, remain constant or declining. This paper investigates the effects of weather variables (temperature, relative humidity, and rainfall) on soil quality and sustainability and its agro-meteorological implications. Soil samples were collected from soils within Calabar Metropolis, Nigeria. Physicochemical properties of the collected soil samples were determined using standard methods, and meteorological data were collected from Nigeria Meteorological Agency at the Airport and University of Calabar Meteorological stations, both at Calabar, Nigeria. Soil sustainability index (SSI), correlation, t-test, coefficient of variation (CV), and trend analysis were computed. From the results, rainfall was found to have a strong negative significant relationship with exchangeable Ca and Na. The results further indicated that temperature and rainfall had negative impact on soil sustainability. Within the period of twelve years under investigation, the sustainability of the soil decreased as the year progressed from 2000 to 2011 by 0.26 % each year. It was concluded that impacts of weather variables such as rainfall and temperature considered in this study, when correlated with exchangeable cations (Ca, K and Na) could be used to assess the effect of climate change on soil health and assist in devising adaptive climate strategies.