Disentangling Jenny’s equation by machine learning

Abstract

AbstractThe so-called soil-landscape model is the central paradigm which relates soil types to their forming factors through the visionary Jenny’s equation. This is a formal mathematical expression that would permit to infer which soil should be found in a specific geographical location if the involved relationship was sufficiently known. Unfortunately, Jenny’s is only a conceptual expression, where the intervening variables are of qualitative nature, not being then possible to work it out with standard mathematical tools. In this work, we take a first step to unlock this expression, showing how Machine Learning can be used to predictably relate soil types and environmental factors. Our method outperforms other conventional statistical analyses that can be carried out on the same forming factors defined by measurable environmental variables.