Baseline high-resolution maps of organic carbon content in Australian soils

Journal Publication ResearchOnline@JCU
Wadoux, Alexandre M.J-C.;Román Dobarco, Mercedes;Malone, Brendan;Minasny, Budiman;McBratney, Alex B.;Searle, Ross
Abstract

We introduce a new dataset of high-resolution gridded total soil organic carbon content data produced at 30 m × 30 m and 90 m × 90 m resolutions across Australia. For each product resolution, the dataset consists of six maps of soil organic carbon content along with an estimate of the uncertainty represented by the 90% prediction interval. Soil organic carbon maps were produced up to a depth of 200 cm, for six intervals: 0–5 cm, 5–15 cm, 15–30 cm, 30–60 cm, 60–100 cm and 100–200 cm. The maps were obtained through interpolation of 90,025 depth-harmonized organic carbon measurements using quantile regression forest and a large set of environmental covariates. Validation with 10-fold cross-validation showed that all six maps had relatively small errors and that prediction uncertainty was adequately estimated. The soil carbon maps provide a new baseline from which change in future carbon stocks can be monitored and the influence of climate change, land management, and greenhouse gas offset can be assessed.

Journal

Scientific Data

Publication Name

Scientific Data

Volume

10

ISBN/ISSN

2052-4463

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Pages Count

10

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Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

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N/A

DOI

10.1038/s41597-023-02056-8