Traditionally, Kentucky agriculture has focused on crop production and soil fertility while overlooking soil quality and its dependence on land management type. This research attempted to reveal the importance of land management types and their individual effects on physical soil quality indicators. The second objective of this study was to show the variance of physical soil quality indicators across different land managements by using layered maps. Such visual representation of the data along with statistical analysis also showed which soil quality parameters are more sensitive to change in land management type. Land management types included three undisturbed grassland and undisturbed deciduous woodland fields to represent natural ecosystems, and three conventionally tilled and no-till agriculture fields to represent ecosystems. The study was conducted in silt loam soils in Lyons and Trigg counties of South Western Kentucky. Averaged soil data for individual soil parameters were mapped out for each field as vector polygons in ArcGIS. Elevation and watershed raster data layers were also added to show the relationship between soil parameters, topography, and watershed. The results showed that soil organic matter, aggregate percentage, and compaction were more sensitive indicators than macroporosity, bulk density or water holding capacity. The results also showed that natural land management types had healthier soils overall and more variability between individual fields
