Geostatistics application for sand mapping development in hilly area of Sabah, Malaysia

The town area in Kundasang, Sabah, was facing soil mass movement, due to the low cohesion values and high angle of internal friction values. These significant soil properties are showing that the soil in this area might have a high percentage of the granular soils, mainly sand. This paper is showing the determination of sand percentage in this area by using Geostatistics, specifically on semivariogram and Ordinary Kriging, according to each layer with two meters depth intervals. Semivariogram models such as circular, spherical, exponential, and gaussian will be applied, and the lowest value of performance indicator, which is Root-Mean-Square-Error (RMSE) would be selected as the most accurate model, with the mapping of the sand percentage as an outcome.