Estimating forest soil organic carbon content using vis-NIR spectroscopy: Implications for large-scale soil carbon spectroscopic assessment

Large-scale soil organic carbon (SOC) stock assessment is expensive as a large number of samples must be collected and then their time-consuming measurements must be made in the laboratory. Previous studies have shown that visible-near-infrared reflectance (vis-NIR) spectroscopy can quickly predict SOC content at a low cost. However, the application of this method at the large scale remains challenging due to the high spatial heterogeneity of SOC and the spatially dependent relationships of soil spectra and SOC content. Here, we conducted large-scale soil sampling across China's forests and established the Chinese forest soil spectral library (CFSSL) by measuring SOC content and scanning the vis-NIR reflectance of 11, 213 soil samples. Compared with the traditional global partial least squares regression (PLSR) modeling method (R-2 = 0.75, RPIQ = 1.95), the clustering by fast research and find of density peak in combination with the Cubist model significantly improved the prediction ability of SOC content (R-2 = 0.96, RPIQ = 5.83). This study provided a cost-efficient spectroscopic methodology, including measurement and prediction modeling, for large-scale SOC estimation.