Prediction of soil organic matter using VNIR spectral parameters extracted from shape characteristics

Abstract Whether spectral feature parameters (SFPs) can be effectively used to predict soil organic matter (SOM), and its spatial transferability was tested for different regions. In this study, a hybrid model was proposed based on SFPs and local regression method. The topsoil spectra of 221 soil samples from Sanjiang Plain and 187 soil samples from Nong’an county in Northeast China were re-sampled (at 0.01 µm intervals) and converted to the first-derivative curves and CR curves. Two SFPs were extracted on reflectance curves (RSFPs), which were defined as curve length (Lc) and area (Ac) between two absorption positions. Local random forest models with k-means clustering were built using the RSFPs and first-derivative spectra for evaluating the feasibility of RSFPs in these two study areas. After analyzing the results of Chinese soil samples, this method was also applied to Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey (LUCAS) topsoil database in order to evaluate the feasibility of RSFPs outside China. Our results revealed these: (1) high correlation between the RSFPs of soil samples with spectral characteristics of sandy soils and SOM; (2) the importance of Lc relative to Ac in SOM prediction is higher; and (3) SOM prediction using RSFPs is comparable to the first-derivative spectra, and the best result has an R2 of 0.76 and an RMSE of 7.43 g kg−1. Our results suggest that RSFPs can be used to predict SOM and have good spatial transferability after applying in two study areas. RSFPs with specific geometric meaning have high potential to predict other soil properties in Northeast China. Our results also provide a reference for SOM mapping using hyper-spectral satellites.