A Hydrophysical Database to Develop Pedotransfer Functions for Brazilian Soils: Challenges and Perspectives

Ottoni, Marta Vasconcelos; Lopes-Assad, Maria Leonor Ribeiro Casimiro; Pachepsky, Yakov; Filho, Otto Corrêa Rotunno

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-06013-2_20

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(41 reference statements)

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“…This assumption will no longer be valid as more regional data are accumulated and analyzed. Other advances in regional PTFs will be possible because of the presence of large databases on region-specific useful PTF inputs such as moisture equivalent (Ottoni et al, 2014), laser diffractometry data (Lamorski et al, 2014), or soil specific surface (Khlosi et al, 2013).…”

Section: Informing Soil Models Using Pedotransfer Functionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling Soil Processes: Review, Key Challenges, and New Perspectives

Vereecken

Schnepf

Hopmans

et al. 2016

Vadose Zone Journal

526

394

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The remarkable complexity of soil and its importance to a wide range of ecosystem services presents major challenges to the modeling of soil processes. Although major progress in soil models has occurred in the last decades, models of soil processes remain disjointed between disciplines or ecosystem services, with considerable uncertainty remaining in the quality of predictions and several challenges that remain yet to be addressed. First, there is a need to improve exchange of knowledge and experience among the different disciplines in soil science and to reach out to other Earth science communities. Second, the community needs to develop a new generation of soil models based on a systemic approach comprising relevant physical, chemical, and biological processes to address critical knowledge gaps in our understanding of soil processes and their interactions. Overcoming these challenges will facilitate exchanges between soil modeling and climate, plant, and social science modeling communities. It will allow us to contribute to preserve and improve our assessment of ecosystem services and advance our understanding of climate-change feedback mechanisms, among others, thereby facilitating and strengthening communication among scientific disciplines and society. We review the role of modeling soil processes in quantifying key soil processes that shape ecosystem services, with a focus on provisioning and regulating services. We then identify key challenges in modeling soil processes, including the systematic incorporation of heterogeneity and uncertainty, the integration of data and models, and strategies for effective integration of knowledge on physical, chemical, and biological soil processes. We discuss how the soil modeling community could best interface with modern modeling activities in other disciplines, such as climate, ecology, and plant research, and how to weave novel observation and measurement techniques into soil models. We propose the establishment of an international soil modeling consortium to coherently advance soil modeling activities and foster communication with other Earth science disciplines. Such a consortium should promote soil modeling platforms and data repository for model development, calibration and intercomparison essential for addressing contemporary challenges.

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Section: Informing Soil Models Using Pedotransfer Functionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling Soil Processes: Review, Key Challenges, and New Perspectives

Vereecken

Schnepf

Hopmans

et al. 2016

Vadose Zone Journal

526

394

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“…The HYBRAS data were taken from publications compiled in the study by Ottoni et al (2014), and other sources (Table 1). The following soil sample selection criteria were adopted: undisturbed samples with at least five water retention measurements in a broad suction range (0-15,000 cm) performed by methods in which the water pressure and water content were measured directly (such as in the pressure plate method).…”

Section: Data Collection and Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The states with the greatest number of data are Rio Grande do Sul, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro, three states where major Brazilian pedological research centers are concentrated. The main soil groups are Ferralsols (355 samples), Acrisols (209 samples), and Nitisols (108 samples), which are representative of weathered tropical environments, the first two being predominant in Brazil and corresponding to 60% of the Brazilian territory (Ottoni et al, 2014). Planosols (192 samples), Gleysols (82), Cambisols (69), Phaeozems (28), Podzols ( 16), Histosols (8), Regosols (6), and Fluvisols (2) are also included.…”

Section: Data Collection and Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hydrophysical Database for Brazilian Soils (HYBRAS) and Pedotransfer Functions for Water Retention

Ottoni

Filho

Schaap

et al. 2018

Vadose Zone Journal

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Soil water retention data are fundamental in soil modeling studies. Temperate pedotransfer functions (PTFs) have been commonly used to estimate water retention of Brazilian soils, mainly because of the lack of soil data for Brazil. However, these PTFs may not be suitable for tropical or subtropical conditions such as those found in Brazil. The objective of this study was to establish a dedicated Hydrophysical Database for Brazilian Soils (HYBRAS) suitable for PTF development. Data present in HYBRAS comprise 445 soil profiles with 1075 samples and are representative of a wide range of Brazilian soils. The data are organized in a relational structure of tables that cover general site descriptions, land cover, and hydrophysical and chemical measurement methods. Raw data (e.g., water retention points covering the 0-15,000-cm suction range) and derived data are included in the tables. Another objective of this study was to use the database to compare the accuracy of water retention estimates based on PTFs developed for Brazilian and temperate regions. In general, the Brazilian PTFs performed better than the temperate models, especially for weathered (Ferralsols, Acrisols, and Nitisols) finetextured (clay, sandy clay, clay loam, silty clay loam, and silty clay) soils. Silt content was not a successful criterion for distinguishing performance of Brazilian and temperate PTFs for Brazilian weathered soils. The water retention of weathered soils was shown to differ from that of temperate soils due to differences in pore structure resulting from their clay content and mineralogical nature, thus confirming results reported in the literature.Abbreviations: HYBRAS, Hydrophysical Database for Brazilian Soils; HYPRES, Hydraulic Properties of European Soil; ME, mean error; pF, log 10 suction; PTF, pedotransfer function; UNSODA, Unsaturated Soil Hydraulic Database; VG, van Genuchten.Soil water retention data are fundamental in soil modeling studies. Their direct measurement is costly and demands intense field work, which makes it infeasible for large areas. As a result, pedotransfer functions (PTFs) (Bouma, 1989) are being developed and used increasingly to estimate water retention data from routinely available soil measures.Brazil plays an important role in the development of tropical water retention PTFs (Botula et al., 2014). Barros and de Jong van Lier (2014) extensively reviewed water retention PTFs for Brazilian soils. These PTFs are commonly developed to estimate the available water content on the basis of field capacity and permanent wilting point, with their use often restricted to certain types of soils or geographic regions (Barros and de Jong van Lier, 2014). To our knowledge and according to Barros and de Jong van Lier (2014), the studies by Tomasella and Hodnett (1998), Tomasella et al. (2000Tomasella et al. ( , 2003, da Silva (2002), de Mello et al. (2005), Fidalski and Tormena (2007), da Silva et al. (2008), Fiorin (2008, Barros et al. (2013) and Medrado and Lima (2014) are the main publications on PTF developme...

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“…Despite this, we recognize that our own present effort is a partial duplication of previous works, e.g. Chagas et al (2004), Cooper et al (2005), Ottoni et al (2014) and Simões et al (2015). However, this duplication is justified by the fact that several factorsdivergence in goals, technological and methodological choices, institutional policies -limit the continuation and improvement of previous work by others.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…A considerable proportion of these data has been used only once and faces the risk of never being used ever again. A number of initiatives have been undertaken to compile some of the existing soil data -for example, Chagas et al (2004), Cooper et al (2005), Ottoni et al (2014) and Simões et al (2015). Due to a variety of reasons -choice of methods and technologies, specificity of goals and policies, and limited funding -these initiatives have not presented a permanent solution to the problem of safeguarding and promoting the reusability of all kinds of soil data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open legacy soil survey data in Brazil: geospatial data quality and how to improve it

Samuel‐Rosa

Dalmolin

Moura-Bueno

et al. 2020

Sci. agric. (Piracicaba, Braz.)

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Spatial soil data applications require sound geospatial data including coordinates and a coordinate reference system. However, when it comes to legacy soil data we frequently find them to be missing or incorrect. This paper assesses the quality of the geospatial data of legacy soil observations in Brazil, and evaluates geospatial data sources (survey reports, maps, spatial data infrastructures, web mapping services) and expert knowledge as a means to fix inconsistencies. The analyses included several consistency checks performed on 6,195 observations from the Brazilian Soil Information System. The positional accuracy of geospatial data sources was estimated so as to obtain an indication of the quality for fixing inconsistencies. The coordinates of 20 soil observations, estimated using the web mapping service, were validated with the true coordinates measured in the field. Overall, inconsistencies of different types and magnitudes were found in half of the observations, causing mild to severe misplacements. The involuntary substitution of symbols and numeric characters with similar appearance when recording geospatial data was the most common typing mistake. Among the geospatial data sources, the web mapping service was the most useful, due to operational advantages and lower positional error (~6 m). However, the quality of the description of the observation location controls the accuracy of estimated coordinates. Thus, the error of coordinates estimated using the web mapping service ranged between 30 and 1000 m. This is equivalent to coordinates measured from arc-seconds to arc-minutes, respectively. Under this scenario, the feedback from soil survey experts is crucial to improving the quality of geospatial data.

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A Hydrophysical Database to Develop Pedotransfer Functions for Brazilian Soils: Challenges and Perspectives

Cited by 5 publications

References 40 publications

Modeling Soil Processes: Review, Key Challenges, and New Perspectives

Modeling Soil Processes: Review, Key Challenges, and New Perspectives

Hydrophysical Database for Brazilian Soils (HYBRAS) and Pedotransfer Functions for Water Retention

Open legacy soil survey data in Brazil: geospatial data quality and how to improve it

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