Adjusting Bulk Density Observations in the Hungarian Soil Information and Monitoring System Using Pedotransfer Functions

Sohrab, Seyedeh Mehrmanzar and Tóth, Brigitta and Pásztor, László and Makó, András and Szatmári, Gábor (2025) Adjusting Bulk Density Observations in the Hungarian Soil Information and Monitoring System Using Pedotransfer Functions. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SOIL SCIENCE, 76 (6). No. e70245. ISSN 1351-0754

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Abstract

Bulk density (BD) is among the most important physical soil properties, influencing many other soil properties, functions and services. An earlier study revealed that BD observations in the Hungarian Soil Information and Monitoring System (SIMS) contain errors and need correction. The objective of this research was to correct BD measurements in SIMS using advanced pedotransfer functions (PTFs) (i.e., multiple linear regression, generalized additive model, cubist, random forest, and artificial neural networks) developed based on the Hungarian Detailed Soil Hydrophysical Database and environmental covariates serving as proxies for the soil forming factors. The developed PTFs were evaluated and compared using cross‐validation. It was found that random forest (RF) outperformed other techniques, with RMSE and model efficiency coefficient values of 0.099 g cm −3 and 0.539, respectively. An RF‐based PTF was used to correct BD measurements in SIMS and to provide quantitative information on the uncertainty associated with the corrected BD values. The corrected dataset consists of information on the profile and layer ID of the SIMS monitoring sites, the upper and lower depth boundaries of each soil genetic horizon, the corrected BD values, as well as the uncertainty associated with them. The dataset and the developed codes are freely available on Zenodo and GitHub, respectively. The use of the corrected BD dataset is recommended not only for soil scientists but also for researchers from various disciplines. The shared dataset can be of interest not only for Hungarian applications but also for continental and global initiatives aimed at soil health monitoring, land degradation neutrality, and sustainable agriculture.

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