IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0223764.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimation of soil pH with geochemical indices in forest soils

Author

Listed:
  • Wei Wu
  • Hong-Bin Liu

Abstract

Soil pH is a critical soil quality index and controls soil microbial activities, soil nutrient availability, and plant roots growth and development. The current study aims to evaluate various pedotransfer functions for predicting soil pH using different geochemical indices (CaO, ratios of Al2O3, Fe2O3, TiO2, SiO2, MgO, and K2O to CaO) in forest soils. Various models including empirical functions (quadratic, cubic, sigmoid, logarithmic) and artificial neural network with these geochemical indices were assessed by independent testing set. Mean bias error (MBE), root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), mean absolute error (MAE), coefficient of determination (R2), t-statistics (t-stat), and Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC) were applied to evaluate the model performances. Additionally, a new indicator (global performance indictor, GPI) was originally introduced in this study and was used to rank these models. According to GPI, the sigmoid functions and ANNs performed better than others. On average, they could explain above 70% of the variability in soil pH. Both model structure and dataset shape impact on model performance. The best input was CaO for ANNs, sigmoid, and logarithmic functions. The ratios of K2O to CaO and Al2O3 to CaO were the best inputs for quadratic and cubic equations, respectively.

Suggested Citation

  • Wei Wu & Hong-Bin Liu, 2019. "Estimation of soil pH with geochemical indices in forest soils," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(10), pages 1-14, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0223764
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0223764
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223764
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0223764&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0223764?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. E. W. Slessarev & Y. Lin & N. L. Bingham & J. E. Johnson & Y. Dai & J. P. Schimel & O. A. Chadwick, 2016. "Water balance creates a threshold in soil pH at the global scale," Nature, Nature, vol. 540(7634), pages 567-569, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Subham Roy & Nimai Singha & Arghadeep Bose & Debanjan Basak & Indrajit Roy Chowdhury, 2023. "Multi-influencing factor (MIF) and RS–GIS-based determination of agriculture site suitability for achieving sustainable development of Sub-Himalayan region, India," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(7), pages 7101-7133, July.
    2. Weiwei Guo & Tao Wu & Guojun Jiang & Lijie Pu & Jianzhen Zhang & Fei Xu & Hongmei Yu & Xuefeng Xie, 2021. "Spatial Distribution, Environmental Risk and Safe Utilization Zoning of Soil Heavy Metals in Farmland, Subtropical China," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-13, May.
    3. Yunpeng Qiu & Yi Zhang & Kangcheng Zhang & Xinyu Xu & Yunfeng Zhao & Tongshuo Bai & Yexin Zhao & Hao Wang & Xiongjie Sheng & Sean Bloszies & Christopher J. Gillespie & Tangqing He & Yang Wang & Huaiha, 2024. "Intermediate soil acidification induces highest nitrous oxide emissions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    4. Xiaoyang Liu & Huading Shi & Zhongke Bai & Xiaocai Liu & Bing Yang & Dingxuan Yan, 2020. "Assessing Soil Acidification of Croplands in the Poyang Lake Basin of China from 2012 to 2018," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-12, April.
    5. Agnieszka Wolna-Maruwka & Aleksandra Grzyb & Remigiusz Łukowiak & Jakub Ceglarek & Alicja Niewiadomska & Dariusz Kayzer, 2023. "Spatial-Temporal Differentiation of Soil Biochemical Parameters and Their Relationship with Nitrogen Resources during the Vegetation Period of Selected Crops," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-27, October.
    6. Yukun Zheng & Hongyan Liu & Huan Yang & Hongya Wang & Wenjie Zhao & Zeyu Zhang & Miao Huang & Weihang Liu, 2022. "Decoupled Asian monsoon intensity and precipitation during glacial-interglacial transitions on the Chinese Loess Plateau," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    7. Xiansheng Xie & Jianfei Qiu & Xinxin Feng & Yanlin Hou & Shuojin Wang & Shugang Jia & Shutian Liu & Xianda Hou & Sen Dou, 2022. "Spatial Distribution and Estimation Model of Soil pH in Coastal Eastern China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-16, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0223764. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.