Advanced machine learning model for better prediction accuracy of soil temperature at different depths

PLoS One. 2020 Apr 14;15(4):e0231055. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231055. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Soil temperature has a vital importance in biological, physical and chemical processes of terrestrial ecosystem and its modeling at different depths is very important for land-atmosphere interactions. The study compares four machine learning techniques, extreme learning machine (ELM), artificial neural networks (ANN), classification and regression trees (CART) and group method of data handling (GMDH) in estimating monthly soil temperatures at four different depths. Various combinations of climatic variables are utilized as input to the developed models. The models' outcomes are also compared with multi-linear regression based on Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency, root mean square error, and coefficient of determination statistics. ELM is found to be generally performs better than the other four alternatives in estimating soil temperatures. A decrease in performance of the models is observed by an increase in soil depth. It is found that soil temperatures at three depths (5, 10 and 50 cm) could be mapped utilizing only air temperature data as input while solar radiation and wind speed information are also required for estimating soil temperature at the depth of 100 cm.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Atmosphere
  • Ecosystem*
  • Environmental Monitoring*
  • Linear Models
  • Machine Learning
  • Neural Networks, Computer
  • Rivers / chemistry
  • Soil / chemistry*
  • Temperature*

Substances

  • Soil

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, grant number 20200027-001.