Large-Scale Soil Organic Carbon Estimation via a Multisource Data Fusion Approach

This study presents a methodological framework for predicting soil organic carbon (SOC) using laboratory spectral recordings from a handheld near-infrared (NIR, 1350–2550 nm) device combined with open geospatial data derived from remote sensing sensors related to landform, climate, and vegetation. Initial experiments proved the superiority of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) using only spectral data captured by the low-cost spectral devices reaching an R2 of 0.62, RMSE of 0.31 log-SOC, and an RPIQ of 1.87. Furthermore, the incorporation of geo-covariates with Neo-Spectra data substantially enhanced predictive capabilities, outperforming existing approaches. Although the CNN-derived spectral features had the greatest contribution to the model, the geo-covariates that were most informative to the model were primarily the rainfall data, the valley bottom flatness, and the snow probability. The results demonstrate that hybrid modeling approaches, particularly using CNNs to preprocess all features and fit prediction models with Extreme Gradient Boosting trees, CNN-XGBoost, significantly outperformed traditional machine learning methods, with a notable RMSE reduction, reaching an R2 of 0.72, and an RPIQ of 2.17. The findings of this study highlight the effectiveness of multimodal data integration and hybrid models in enhancing predictive accuracy for SOC assessments. Finally, the application of interpretable techniques elucidated the contributions of various climatic and topographical factors to predictions, as well as spectral information, underscoring the complex interactions affecting SOC variability.