Hine learning approaches in downstream lands of Azad dam (case study: Kurdistan province)

Digital Soil Mapping (DSM) encompasses a variety of methodologies that can yield precise spatial information about soil by establishing quantitative relationships between environmental covariates (predictors) and soil classes or properties. In this study, Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), Decision Tree (DT), Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR), and Random Forest (RF) algorithms were used to predict the soil map of downstream lands of Azad dam with an area of approximately 178.3 ha in the northwest of Sanandaj city in Kurdistan province. A random soil sampling method was used to determine the location and distribution of the 84 soil profiles in the study area. After recording soil morphological attributes, sampling of all horizons was conducted for required laboratory analysis. Afterward, the soil profiles were classified up to the family taxonomic level based on US classification system. Based on the soil taxonomy classification system, Inceptisols and Entisols order were observed by frequency, two Suborder, three Great groups, five Subgroups, and Family. To calculate the predictor variables, a digital elevation model (DEM) with a 10 m spatial resolution and Sentinel 2-B satellite images were used in the study area. To check the prediction accuracy of the models the Overall accuracy (OA), Kappa Index (K), and Brier Score (BS) were used. The best result was obtained by the ANN model (OA=0.65, K=0.53, and BS=0.16, respectively). The weakest predictions were found by DT model with OA, K, and BS of 0.38, 0.22, and 0.87, respectively.