A Preliminary Evaluation of the Soils of North-Western Machakos District (Parts of Matungulu and Mbiuni Locations)

Abstract

At the request of the Medical Research Centre, Nairobi, a site evaluation was carried out in the N.W. part of Machakos District. At present the M.R.C. is carrying out a longitudinal study on morbidity and mortality of a number of childhood diseases in this area. The study aims at the collection 01' demographic and medical data among two population groups of 5,000 each in different ecological settings, (Vogel et al, 1974). There is no proper soil data for this area, though it is Covered by the "lend System Atlas of Western Kenya", scale 1:1.000.000 which is based on photo interpretation with a minimum of field observations~ The,D,O.S. report on the soils of Nairobi-Thika-Yatta-Machakos area (Scott, 1963) also covers this part (scale 1:100.000). This -is also mainly a photo interpretation map with few field observations. These two documents are on a reconnaissance scale, and do not give sufficient data for the area under consideration