Evaluating performance of miniaturized spectrometers in predicting soil properties using multivariate statistical analysis

Despite the increasing use of portable, low-cost spectrometers in estimating soil properties, there is lack of documentation regarding the factors contributing to the lower performance of these spectrometers when compared to conventional ones. This study investigates potential factors influencing performance of the Nanoquest, a low-cost spectrometer, in estimating soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN). To conduct the study, five different models (cubist, partial least squares regression, support vector machines, random forest, and generalised boosted models) were tested for the estimation SOC and TN and a fivefold cross-validation analysis was conducted for model hyperparameter optimization. The Nanoquest achieved a Lin’s concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) value of 0.84 and an R2 value of 0.74 for SOC. For TN, CCC values of 0.86 and an R2 value of 0.78 were obtained. To understand the impact of the spectral range and spectral resolution on SOC and TN estimation, the ASD spectra were digitally resampled to match the Nanoquest spectral range and resolution. This resampling resulted in a slight decrease in model performance for the spectral range and a more pronounced decrease for the spectral resolution.