Abstract
With the growing number of datasets to describe greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, there is an opportunity to develop novel predictive models that require neither the expense nor time required to make direct field measurements. This study evaluates the potential for machine learning (ML) approaches to predict soil GHG emissions without the biogeochemical expertise that is required to use many current models for simulating soil GHGs. There are ample data from field measurements now publicly available to test new modeling approaches. The objective of this paper was to develop and evaluate machine learning (ML) models using field data (soil temperature, soil moisture, soil classification, crop type, fertilization type, and air temperature) available in the Greenhouse gas Reduction through Agricultural Carbon Enhancement network (GRACEnet) database to simulate soil CO2 fluxes with different fertilization methods. Four machine learning algorithms—K nearest neighbor regression (KNN), support vector regression (SVR), random forest (RF) regression, and gradient boosted (GB) regression—were used to develop the models. The GB regression model outperformed all the other models on the training dataset with R2 = 0.88, MAE = 2177.89 g C ha−1 day−1, and RMSE 4405.43 g C ha−1 day−1. However, the RF and GB regression models both performed optimally on the unseen test dataset with R2 = 0.82. Machine learning tools were useful for developing predictors based on soil classification, soil temperature and air temperature when a large database like GRACEnet is available, but these were not highly predictive variables in correlation analysis. This study demonstrates the suitability of using tree-based ML algorithms for predictive modeling of CO2 fluxes, but no biogeochemical processes can be described with such models.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-14-2022
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy12010197
Related Content
The original data used in this study can be found at: https://data.nal.usda.gov/dataset/gracenet-greenhouse-gas-reduction-through-agricultural-carbon-enhancement-network (accessed on 8 February 2021). The redacted version can be obtained from the first author and is accessible from https://github.com/Toby4321/GRACEnet-Data (accessed on 23 October 2021).
Repository Citation
Adjuik, Toby A. and Davis, Sarah C., "Machine Learning Approach to Simulate Soil CO2 Fluxes under Cropping Systems" (2022). Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Graduate Research. 1.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/bae_gradpub/1
Notes/Citation Information
Published in Agronomy, v. 12, issue 1, 197.
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).