Predictors for digital mapping of forest soil organic carbon stocks in different types of landscape

Autor: Luboš Borůvka, Radim Vašát, Vít Šrámek, Kateřina Neudertová Hellebrandová, Věra Fadrhonsová, Milan Sáňka, Lenka Pavlů, Ondřej Sáňka, Oldřich Vacek, Karel Němeček, Shahin Nozari, Vincent Yaw Oppong Sarkodie
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Soil and Water Research, Vol 17, Iss 2, Pp 69-79 (2022)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1801-5395
1805-9384
DOI: 10.17221/4/2022-SWR
Popis: Forest soils have a high potential to store carbon and thus mitigate climate change. The information on spatial distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks is thus very important. This study aims to analyse the importance of environmental predictors for forest SOC stock prediction at the regional and national scale in the Czech Republic. A big database of forest soil data for more than 7 000 sites was compiled from several surveys. SOC stocks were calculated from SOC content and bulk density for the topsoil mineral layer 0-30 cm. Spatial prediction models were developed separately for individual natural forest areas and for four subsets with different altitude range, using random forest method. The importance of environmental predictors in the models strongly differs between regions and altitudes. At lower altitudes, forest edaphic series and soil classes are strong predictors, while at higher altitudes the predictors related to topography become more important. The importance of soil classes depends on the pedodiversity level and on the difference in SOC stock between the classes. The contribution of forest types as predictors is limited when one (mostly coniferous) type dominates. Better prediction results can be obtained in smaller, but consistent regions, like some natural forest areas.
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