Complex hydrological knowledge to support digital soil mapping

Abstract

Drainage network (DN) is the representation of all the stream channels developed over the landscape. The morphometry of DN describes the relationship between channel characteristics and basin geometry, which is regulated by a series of processes, such as weathering, geomorphology, sediment erosion/deposition. The interaction between these factors impacts soil formation, resulting in a relationship between DN morphometry and soil characteristics. Unstable surfaces produced shallow soils, enhancing surface runoff and high drainage density, while stable landscapes favor vertical infiltration through old and weathered soils. Digital soil mapping has benefited from multiple environmental variables, such as relief and satellite data, but DN information can offer great contributions for the prediction of soil attributes. In this work, we applied a set of complex DN variables to perform digital maps of clay, sand, and soil organic carbon (SOC), for a 1378 km2 site in the São Paulo state, Brazil. We analyzed the relationship between the drainage density (DD), drainage frequency (DF), channel sinuosity, and confluence angle with soil classes and attributes. The Cubist and Random Forest algorithms were tested to predict the soil information, and to evaluate the impact of the new hydrological variables. The results showed that landscapes predominated by clayey soils favor surface runoff and increase channel formation, with higher channel sinuosity and acute confluence angles. These new drainage variables contributed 35 to 55% for SOC prediction. DD and DF were the most important drainage variables on the models, ranging from 65 to 70%. The external validation reached R2 of 0.72 and 0.56 for the prediction of clay and sand, respectively. The impact of DN information on the model performance suggests that more work is needed to better explore and understand the relationship between DN and soil information.