Non-Linear Models for Assessing Soil Moisture Estimation

Accurately estimating soil moisture (SM) without direct measurements poses significant challenges due to nonlinear interactions in meteorological variables and the lagged response of SM to precipitation. This study evaluates two approaches: the auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rui Li, Susu Wang, Han Wu, Hao Dong, Dezhi Kong, Hanxue Li, Dorothy S. Zhang, Haitao Chen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-04-01
Series:Horticulturae
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2311-7524/11/5/492
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Accurately estimating soil moisture (SM) without direct measurements poses significant challenges due to nonlinear interactions in meteorological variables and the lagged response of SM to precipitation. This study evaluates two approaches: the auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model for one-day-ahead SM forecasting and a K-means clustering-based multilayer perceptron (K-MLP) for real-time SM estimation at depths of 5 cm, 20 cm, and 50 cm in Changbai Mountain region. Although the K-MLP model outperformed the MLP model, achieving a maximum R<sup>2</sup> of 0.728, its estimation accuracy remains suboptimal. By contrast, the ARIMA model effectively leveraged SM persistence, achieving high accuracy in one-day-ahead forecasting. Specifically, the ARIMA (0, 1, 6), ARIMA (1, 1, 2), and ARIMA (2, 1, 1) models yield R<sup>2</sup> values of 0.9677, 0.9853, and 0.9684 and RMSE values of 0.02 m<sup>3</sup>·m<sup>3</sup>, 0.015 m<sup>3</sup>·m<sup>3</sup>, and 0.006 m<sup>3</sup>·m<sup>3</sup> at depths of 5 cm, 20 cm, and 50 cm, respectively. This study explores ARIMA’s robustness in short-term SM forecasting and its adaptability to dynamic meteorological conditions, offering potential applications in agricultural water management and ecological monitoring.
ISSN:2311-7524