Soil depth modelling using terrain analysis and satellite imagery: the case study of Qeshlaq mountainous watershed (Kurdistan, Iran)

Soil depth is a major soil characteristic, which is commonly used in distributed hydrological modelling in order to present watershed subsurface attributes. This study aims at developing a statistical model for predicting the spatial pattern of soil depth over the mountainous watershed from environmental variables derived from a digital elevation model (DEM) and remote sensing data. Among the explanatory variables used in the models, seven are derived from a 10 m resolution DEM, namely specific catchment area, wetness index, aspect, slope, plan curvature, elevation and sediment transport index. Three variables <em>landuse</em>, <em>NDVI</em> and <em>pca</em>1 are derived from Landsat8 imagery, and are used for predicting soil depth by the models. Soil attributes, soil moisture, topographic curvature, training samples for each landuse and major vegetation types are considered at 429 profiles within four subwatersheds. <em>Random forests</em> (<em>RF</em>), s<em>upport vector machine</em> (<em>SVM</em>) and <em>artificial neural network</em> (<em>ANN</em>) are used to predict soil depth using the explanatory variables. The models are run using 336 data points in the calibration dataset with all 31 explanatory variables, and soil depth as the response of the models. Mean decrease permutation accuracy is performed on Variable selection. Testing dataset is done with the model soil depth values at testing locations (93 points) using different efficiency criteria. Prediction error is computed for both the calibration and testing datasets. Results show that the variables <em>landuse</em>, <em>specific surface area</em>, <em>slope</em>, <em>pca1</em>, <em>NDVI</em> and <em>aspect</em> are the most important explanatory variables in predicting soil depth. RF and SVM models are appropriate for the mountainous watershed areas that have been limited in the depth of the soil and ANN model is more suitable for watershed with the fields of agricultural and deep soil depth.