An adaptive weighting algorithm for interpolating the soil potassium content

Abstract

The concept of spatial interpolation is important in the soil sciences. However, the use of a single global interpolation model is often limited by certain conditions (e.g., terrain complexity), which leads to distorted interpolation results. Here we present a method of adaptive weighting combined environmental variables for soil properties interpolation (AW-SP) to improve accuracy. Using various environmental variables, AW-SP was used to interpolate soil potassium content in Qinghai Lake Basin. To evaluate AW-SP performance, we compared it with that of inverse distance weighting (IDW), ordinary kriging, and OK combined with different environmental variables. The experimental results showed that the methods combined with environmental variables did not always improve prediction accuracy even if there was a strong correlation between the soil properties and environmental variables. However, compared with IDW, OK, and OK combined with different environmental variables, AW-SP is more stable and has lower mean absolute and root mean square errors. Furthermore, the AW-SP maps provided improved details of soil potassium content and provided clearer boundaries to its spatial distribution. In conclusion, AW-SP can not only reduce prediction errors, it also accounts for the distribution and contributions of environmental variables, making the spatial interpolation of soil potassium content more reasonable.