Remote Sensing of Environment 115 (2011) 1443–1455

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Remote Sensing of Environment

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / r s e

Digitally mapping the information content of visible–near infrared spectra of surficial

Australian soils
R.A. Viscarra Rossel ⁎, C. Chen 1
Soil and Landscapes Program, CSIRO Land and Water, Bruce E. Butler Laboratory, GPO Box 1666 Canberra ACT 2601, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: We can use soil mapping to gain a better understanding of the soil and how it varies in the landscape. Good
Received 31 March 2010 quality data sets that represent the survey area are important to develop quantitative spatial models for soil
Received in revised form 9 February 2011 mapping and to evaluate their outputs. Over the past three decades, scientists have become interested in
Accepted 10 February 2011
rapid, non-destructive measurements of the soil using visible–near infrared (vis–NIR) (400–2500 nm) and
Available online 21 March 2011
mid infrared (mid-IR) (2500–25,000 nm) diffuse reflectance spectra. These spectra provide an integrative
Keywords:
technique that measures the fundamental characteristics and composition of the soil, including colour, iron
Soil visible–near infrared spectra oxide, clay and carbonate mineralogy, organic matter content and composition, the amount of water present
Digital soil mapping and particle size. If adequately summarised and exhaustively available over large areas, this information
Soil mapping might be useful in situations where reliable, quantitative soil information is needed, such as agricultural,
Principal components analysis environmental and ecological modelling, or for digital soil mapping. The aims of this paper are to summarise
Predictive modelling the information content of vis–NIR spectra of Australian soils and to use a predictive spatial modelling
Soil-landscape modelling approach to digitally map this information across Australia on a 3-arc second grid (around 90 m). We
measured the spectra of 4606 surface soil samples from across Australia using a vis–NIR spectrometer. The soil
information content of the spectra was summarised using a principal component analysis (PCA). We used
model trees to derive statistical relationships between the scores of the PCA and 31 predictors that were
readily available and we thought might best represent the factors of soil formation (climate, organisms, relief,
parent material, time and the soil itself). The models were validated and subsequently used to produce digital
maps of the information content of the spectra, as summarised by the PCA, with estimates of prediction error
at 3-arc seconds pixel resolution. The most frequently used predictors at the continental scale were factors
related to climate, parent material (and time), while at landscape and more local scales, they were factors
related to relief, organisms and the soil. Finally, we use our maps for pedologic interpretations of the
distribution of soils in Australia. Our results might be useful in situations requiring high-resolution,
quantitative soil information e.g. in agricultural, environmental and ecologic modelling and for soil mapping
and classification.
© 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction easily obtainable, digital auxiliary predictor variables or covariates,

The use of predictive soil mapping began to appear in the literature
in the early 1990s (e.g. Gessler et al., 1995; McKenzie & Austin, 1993;
Moore et al., 1993). Conceptually, the basis for this approach is
conventional soil survey (e.g. Sleeman, 1979), because it also relates
environmental information around the survey area to the soils
present, under the hypothesis that their characteristics depend on
environmental factors that affect their formation (Jenny, 1941).
Unlike conventional soil survey however, predictive soil mapping
relies on relationships between the soil and exhaustively sampled,
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: + 61 2 6246 5945; fax: + 61 2 6246 5965.
E-mail addresses: raphael.viscarra-rossel@csiro.au (R.A.V. Rossel),
charlie.chen@csiro.au (C. Chen).
1
Tel.: + 61 2 6246 5928; fax: + 61 2 6246 5965.
(e.g. remote sensing data, a digital elevation model and terrain
derivatives, geology, land use), and inference is based on a statistical
model that produces quantitative expressions of soil variability and its
error. The model can, for example, take the form of a regression or a
data-mining algorithm (Bui et al., 2006; Grimm et al., 2008;
Henderson et al., 2005; Moran & Bui, 2002). Broadly speaking, this
approach has been referred to in the literature as ‘soil landscape
modelling’ (Gessler et al., 1995), ‘soil land inference modelling’ (Zhu
et al., 1997), ‘soil survey using environmental correlation’ (McKenzie
& Ryan, 1999), ‘predictive soil mapping’ (Scull et al., 2003) and ‘digital
soil mapping’ (DSM) (McBratney et al., 2003).
Good quality, quantitative soil data are imperative to enable the
development of the quantitative spatial models for soil mapping, and to
evaluate their outputs. These data must come from soil measurement,
however, the large cost and time-consuming nature of soil analyses
remains a significant constraint (Viscarra Rossel & McBratney, 1998a). It

0034-4257/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.rse.2011.02.004
1444 R.A.V. Rossel, C. Chen / Remote Sensing of Environment 115 (2011) 1443–1455
has therefore become important to develop and use more efficient
techniques to measure soils and their properties.
Over approximately the past three decades, soil scientists have
become interested in measuring the soil using visible–near infrared
(vis–NIR) (400–2500 nm) diffuse reflectance spectra (e.g. Guerrero et
al., 2010). Field and laboratory experiments have shown that
wavelength-specific absorptions of electromagnetic radiation in this
range provide diagnostic measures of the chemical, physical and
mineralogical composition of the soil (e.g. Clark et al., 1990; Viscarra
Rossel et al., 2009). A vis–NIR spectrum provides an integrative
measure of the soil. It contains information on its colour, its iron oxide,
clay and carbonate mineralogy, its organic matter content and
composition, the amount of water present and its particle size
(Viscarra Rossel et al., 2010). Specifically, the visible range provides a
measure of soil colour; broad and shallow absorption bands near 500–
700 nm can be due to soil organic matter; those near 400 nm, 600 nm,
800 nm and 900 nm due to iron oxides; narrow, well-defined
absorptions near 1400 nm and 1900 nm can be related to hydroxyl
and water molecules; and different absorptions between 2200 nm
and 2500 nm can be due to clay minerals, organic matter and
carbonate. Various other absorptions due to soil constituents also
occur throughout the 400–2500 nm range, however these are often
difficult to see and identify because they may represent much weaker,
larger-order overtones of the soil constituents, which can also overlap
(e.g. Clark, 1999; Hunt & Salisbury, 1970). Particle size can be
measured because reflectance generally increases with smaller
particle sizes (e.g. Bowers & Hanks, 1965; Viscarra Rossel &
McBratney, 1998b).
Because vis–NIR spectra provide an integrative measure of the soil,
they have been used with multivariate calibrations to infer soil
properties like soil organic matter, clay content, pH, CEC (e.g. Brown et
al., 2006; Chang et al., 2001; Shepherd & Walsh; 2002; Stenberg et al.,
2010), and more recently to assess soil quality (Idowu et al., 2008)
and soil fertility (Viscarra Rossel et al., 2010).
Here, our use of vis–NIR spectra differs to how it is more
commonly used in multivariate calibrations to predict soil properties.
We propose that if the information content was adequately
summarised and exhaustively available over large areas, the data
will provide an accurate representation of the distribution of soils and
Fig. 1. (a) Sample locations across Australia and (b) the range of Australian Soil Classification orders (Isbell, 2002) that they cover. The orders are: Vertosols (VE), Tenosols (TE), Sodosols
(SO), Rudosols (RU), Podosols (PO), Organosols (OR), Kurosols (KU), Kandosols (KA), Hydrosols (HY), Ferrosols (FE), Dermosols (DE), Chromosols (CH), and Calcarosols (CA).
might be useful in situations where quantitative soil information is
needed. The rationale is that the spectra contain information on the
fundamental components of the soil, their minerals and organic
matter. Therefore, the aims of our paper are to summarise the
information content of the vis–NIR spectra of surficial Australian soils
using principal component analysis (PCA) and to use a predictive
spatial modelling approach to digitally map this information across
Australia on a 3-arc second grid (around 90 m pixels). We propose
that our results provide a good description of Australian soils and
would be useful in situations where reliable, high-resolution
quantitative soil information is needed for Australia.
2. Methods
2.1. The soil samples
We used soil samples from different sources that comprised
continental-, regional- and field-scale surveys. All had geographic
coordinates. We used 4606 surface soil samples from within the top
0–20 cm layer for this work. We had (i) 2350 samples from the
Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organi-
sation's (CSIRO) National Soil Archive; (ii) 1111 samples from the
National Geochemical Survey of Australia (NGSA) (de Caritat et al.,
2007); (iii) 641 samples from state departments (Queensland
Department of Resource Management and Western Australia Depart-
ment of Agriculture and Food) and regional surveys; and (iv) 307
samples from a number of smaller farm- and field-scale surveys
conducted for research purposes. The spatial locations of the samples
used are shown in Fig. 1a.
The samples covered the range of Australian Soil Classification
orders (Isbell, 2002) (Fig. 1b), over the varying climatic regimes
across Australia. All samples were air dried and approximately 100 g
subsamples were crushed to a particle size of approximately 2 mm for
the spectroscopic analysis.
2.2. Vis–NIR spectroscopy and spectroscopic analyses
We measured the diffuse reflectance spectra of the 4606 samples
using the Labspec® vis–NIR spectrometer (Analytical Spectral
 R.A.V. Rossel, C. Chen / Remote Sensing of Environment 115 (2011) 1443–1455 1445

Devices, Boulder, Colorado, USA) with a spectral range of 350–
2500 nm and spectral resolution of 3 nm at 700 nm and 10 nm at
1400 nm and 2100 nm. The soils were measured using a contact probe
(Analytical Spectral Devices, Boulder, Colorado, USA), and a Spec-
tralon® panel was used for white referencing once every 10
measurements. For each soil measurement, 30 spectra were averaged
to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. We collected spectra with a
sampling resolution of 1 nm so that each spectrum comprised 2151
wavelengths.
Noisy portions of each spectrum between 350–379 nm and 2451–
2500 nm were removed, leaving spectra in the range of 380–2450 nm
for our analysis. A continuum removal technique was used to
normalise the reflectance spectra for comparing absorption features
from a common baseline. The continuum represents absorptions that
are due to different processes than those of interest. It can be
calculated using different functions, such as straight-line segments,
Gaussian functions, polynomials or splines (Clark & Roush, 1984). In
this work, a convex hull was fitted over the top of each reflectance
spectrum using straight-line segments that connected local reflec-
tance maxima. For each spectrum, we calculated the continuum-
removed (SCR) spectrum by dividing the original reflectance values
(SR) by the corresponding values of the continuum line (SC):
SR
SCR =
SC
The first and last reflectance values of each spectrum are on the
hull, therefore the first and last wavelengths in the output continuum-
removed spectrum are equal to 1.
geographic position (n). We conducted the mapping by developing
statistical models between the different PCA scores (which in our case
summarise the soil information content of the vis–NIR spectra) and
predictors that represent the environmental factors across space and
some, implicitly also across time. The rationale is that if the statistical
relationships are strong, then the inferences will also be strong, and
the maps will take on the spatial characteristics of the predictors and
their relative processes.
2.4.1. Environmental predictors
We assembled a set of readily available environmental predictors
(covariates) that we thought might best represent the variables in
Eq. (3). The spatial coordinates, ‘n’, were accounted for implicitly in
the predictors. Table 1 lists the set of environmental predictors and
their nominal scales or resolutions. They are described below.
• The annual availability of water in the environment, W in
millimetres, derived by Berry and Roderick (2002).
• Landsat thematic mapper (TM) bands 1–6, used to represent soil
and vegetation factors.
• Climatic variables derived from daily averages, commencing in 1889
for rainfall, 1970 for evaporation and 1957 for the temperatures and
solar radiation. Jeffrey et al. (2001) describes the interpolation of
these surfaces.
ð1Þ
• The fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (FPAR) inter-
cepted by the sunlit canopy of the persistently green (evergreen —
FPAR-e) and seasonally green (raingreen — FPAR-r) canopy layer.
FPAR-e comprises a persistent evergreen component mostly due to
woody vegetation, while FPAR-r comprises a fluctuating seasonal

2.3. Multivariate analysis

A PCA was performed on the SCR data from which the means were
Table 1
subtracted, (i.e. centred data). We used the iterative NIPALS algorithm
A list of the auxiliary environmental predictor variables (covariates) used and their
(Martens & Næs, 1989). The centred PCA model equation is: nominal scale or resolution.

Factor of soil Predictor variables Nominal scale/

T
X = 1⋅x + T K ⋅P K + EK ð2Þ formation approximate
resolution (m)

Soil Australian soil classification 1:2,000,000

where X is the matrix of SCR values, x is the vector with the average SCR
(categorical)
values, T represents the matrix of scores and P the matrix of the Annual availability of water, W (mm) 5000
eigenvectors (loadings) for all K components. E is the matrix LandsatB1 — 450–520 nm 30
containing the residuals from calculation of each of the kth LandsatB2 — 520–600 nm 30
components. The algorithm avoids the computation of the covariance LandsatB3 — 630–690 nm 30
LandsatB6 — 10,400–12,500 nm 60
matrix, which when analysing large data sets can greatly reduce Climate Mean annual rainfall (mm) 5000
computational time. We did not standardise the data to unit variance Mean annual temperature min (°C) 5000
because all our wavelengths were in the same units and the Mean annual temperature max (°C) 5000
differences in variability between them were inherently important. Mean annual evapotranspiration (°C) 5000
Mean annual solar radiation 5000
The scores condense the information in the samples, and the
(J m−2 yr−1)
eigenvectors show the variables (in our case the wavelengths) that Organisms/ LandsatB4 — 760–900 nm 30
load heavily on the particular component. PCA reduces the dimen- vegetation LandsatB5 — 1550–1750 nm 30
sionality of the data to fewer components that describe a large portion Fpar — evergreen 250
of its variance. The first component accounts for the largest variance, Fpar — raingreen 250
Vegetation types (categorical) 1:5,000,000
while subsequent components account for decreasingly smaller Relief/topography DEM 90
portions. Slope 90
Relief 90
2.4. Digital soil mapping Aspect 90
Curvatures — plan and profile 90
Hillshades — 0, 45, 90, and 135 90
To digitally map the soil information content of the spectra we MrVBF 90
used a modification of Jenny (1941)'s state factor model for DSM Parent material Total dose 100
(McBratney et al., 2003): and time K 100
U 100
Th 100
Soil = f ðs; c; o; r; p; a; and nÞ; ð3Þ Th:K 100
U:K 100
where the factors include data that may represent the soil itself (s), Geology (categorical) 1:1,000,000
Land use 2001–2002 (categorical) 1:2,500,000
climate (c), organisms (o), relief (r), parent material (p), age (a) and
1446 R.A.V. Rossel, C. Chen / Remote Sensing of Environment 115 (2011) 1443–1455

0 5

2
PC1(65%)

2
PC2(17%)

Fig. 2. Sample soil vis–NIR spectrum displayed as percent reflectance (R) and

2
PC3(9%)
continuum removed reflectance (CR). The plot shows regions of the spectrum that
hold important information on soil constituents.

component due to herbaceous vegetation. FPAR was derived

through the analysis of time series of the normalised difference
vegetation index (NDVI) from MODIS data for the period 1 July
2000 to 30 June 2005 (Roderick, 2009; Mackey et al., 2008). 0 5 0 5 0 5

• A 1:5,000,000 present time vegetation map for Australia from

Geoscience Australia.
• Terrain attributes were derived from the 3-arc second shuttle radar
topographic mission (SRTM) digital elevation model (DEM), to
capture landscape features and function. We also used the Multi-
resolution Valley Bottom Flatness index (MrVBF) (Gallant &
Dowling, 2003)
• Gamma radiometrics data for Australia from Geoscience Australia,
comprising grids of potassium (K), uranium (U), thorium (Th), total
dose and Th:K and U:K ratios compiled from more than 550 surveys.
Minty et al. (2009) describe the data.
• A 1:1,000,000 surface geology map from Geoscience Australia.
• A 1:2,500,000 land use map for the 2001–2002 period from the
Bureau of Rural Sciences.
Our intent was to produce digital soil maps of the information
content of vis–NIR spectra of Australian soils at 3 arc sec. Therefore,
any predictors that did not conform to this resolution were resampled
to the same grid using bilinear interpolation. We selected 3 arc sec
because it is the target resolution suggested by the Global Soil
Mapping consortium for mapping soil (Sanchez et al., 2009).
2.4.2. Predictive spatial modelling
To construct the statistical models between the PCA scores and the
predictor variables (Table 1), we used model trees based on the M5
methodology (Quinlan, 1992), implemented in Cubist software
(RuleQuest Research, Sydney, Australia). The method uses a divide-
and-conquer approach to recursively partition the predictor variables
and build tree-like models. However, whereas tree models such as
classification and regression trees (CART) (Breiman et al., 1984) have
values at their leaves, M5 leaves have multivariate linear least-squares
models.
Fig. 3. Scatterplot correlations between the first three principal component analysis
scores (PC1, PC2 and PC3). The graph also shows the proportion of the total variance
that each principal component explains and their histograms.
The method uses rule sets with if–then conditions to partition the
data into regions with similar environments that are defined by
characteristics of the predictor variables (pv) (e.g. if pv1 b x; pv2 = (a,
b, c); pv3 N z). When the conditions in each rule are satisfied, linear
least-squares models are used to predict the response (y) in each
region (e.g. then y = c 0 + c1 (pv 4 ) + c2 (pv 5 ) + c 3 (pv 6 ) + …). The
advantages of having conditionals in the rules is that they enable
different linear models to capture the local linearity in different parts
of the landscape, as represented by the predictor variable space,
leading to smaller trees and better prediction accuracy than
regression trees. The models are also interpretable. Quinlan (1992)
provides a detailed description of how the trees are constructed.
To model the PCA scores, we used 10-fold cross validation (Efron &
Tibshirani, 1993) with all 4606 observations to test different models
with up to 50 rules and up to 10 committee models in each. We
selected the model trees that produced the best statistics and refitted
them using a randomly selected training data set consisting of two-
thirds of the observations. The remaining third were held back and

Table 2
Principal component analysis of the Australian soil vis–NIR spectra.

Principal component Eigenvalue Eigenvalue % total Eigenvalue cumulative %

1 12.1 65.1 65.1

2 3.1 16.6 81.7
3 1.7 9.1 90.8
4 0.8 4.2 95.0
Fig. 4. Eigenvectors of the first three principal components (PC1, PC2 and PC3).
 R.A.V. Rossel, C. Chen / Remote Sensing of Environment 115 (2011) 1443–1455 1447

Table 3
Correlation coefficients between the scores of the first three principal components
(PC1, PC2 and PC3) and total organic carbon (TOC), clay content, cation exchange
capacity (CEC) and soil pH measured in a 1:5 soil water slurry (pHw).
maps were also produced. Finally, we made an RGB composite from
the three PCA scores maps to help with interpretation of the
distribution of soils in Australia.

PC1 PC2 PC3 TOC Clay CEC pHw

3. Results
PC1 1
PC2 0.05 1
Visible–NIR spectra contain information on minerals, organics,
PC3 −0.02 0.05 1
TOC 0.1 0.38 −0.35 1
water, colour and particle size, which are fundamental components of
Clay 0.14 0.26 0.62 0.15 1 the soil. Here, we will not report a comprehensive account of the
CEC 0.16 0.37 0.6 0.14 0.65 1 important absorption features of vis–NIR spectra, but only mention
pHw 0.05 0.07 0.57 −0.3 0.24 0.51 1 them in a broad sense and direct the reader to relevant literature (e.g.
Ben-Dor et al., 1999; Clark et al., 1990; Viscarra Rossel & Behrens,
2010). Briefly, absorptions in the visible–short wave NIR (400–
used as an independent set to test the performance of the models. The 1000 nm) are due to soil carbon and Fe-oxides (mainly hematite [α-
statistics used to assess the predictions on both cross and test sets Fe2O3] and goethite [α-FeOOH]), while those in the NIR (1000–
validations are: 2500 nm) are due to water, clay minerals, carbonates and organic
(i) The Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, which measures matter. A vis–NIR spectrum from our library, indicating the approx-
the strength of the linear relationship between the observed imate position of absorptions of some fundamental soil constituents,
and predicted values. is shown in Fig. 2.
(ii) The normalised root mean squared error (nRMSE) is the RMSE
divided by the range of the observed values. It is expressed as a 3.1. Summarising the soil information content of vis–NIR spectra with
percentage, where lower values indicate less residual variance. PCA
It is calculated by:
Soil vis–NIR spectra contain redundant information because of the
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
N high degree of correlation between neighbouring wavelengths. This is
1
N ∑ ðŷ i −yi Þ why we compressed them from the initial 2151 wavelengths into four
i=1
nRMSE = ; components that describe 95% of the information contained in the
ymax −ymin
original data. Table 2 provides details of the PCA.
The fourth component explained only 4% of the variance in the
where yi and ŷ i are the observed and predicted values,
data (Table 2) and was therefore not considered in subsequent
respectively, and ymax − ymin is the range of the observed values.
analysis. Scatter plots of the first three PCA scores are shown in Fig. 3.
(iii) The relative error (RE) quantifies the improvement of the
The PCA scores of the Australian soil spectra were plotted in
predictions relative to their average. If there is no improvement
coherent clouds (Fig. 3). A few scores appeared to be outliers based on
on the average, the environmental and soil variables have little
their scattered position on the lower left quartile of Fig. 3. These
predictive capacity and the RE equals 1. It is calculated by:
samples were rescanned to check for measurement errors but were
  subsequently retained in the analysis. They represented spectra with
1
∑Ni= 1 yi −ŷi 
RE = N1 ; extreme absorptions in the 400–1100 nm range, which are related to
N ∑i = 1 jyi −yj
N
a broad absorption that is likely to be due to soil organic matter. The
eigenvectors of the first three principal components are shown in
where y is average of the predicted values.
Fig. 4.
To assess the utility of the predictors, we also examined the set of The eigenvector of the first principal component had loadings
rules and the frequency of the individual predictors in the conditions near wavelengths that are characteristic of iron oxides, primarily
and the linear models (e.g. Bui et al., 2006). hematite near 440 nm, 530 nm and 860 nm (negative loadings).
Cubist calculates prediction error by determining the average However, small positive loadings with absorptions characteristic of
residual of the models on the training data and multiplying it by 1:1 and 2:1 layer clay minerals near 1400 nm, 1900 nm, 2165 nm
(n + v)/(n − v), where n is the number of training observations and v is and 2200 nm are also apparent (Fig. 4). The eigenvector of the
the number of parameters in the model. This essentially increases the second component was dominated by loadings near 640 nm
error of prediction for models with many parameters constructed from 1400 nm and 1912 nm (negative loadings), which might be due to
only a small number of observations (Quinlan, 1992). soil organic carbon (e.g. McCauley et al., 1993; Shonk et al., 1991)
and OH molecules in their structure (Fig. 4). A strong positive
2.4.3. Spatial generalisation of the models — mapping loading near 400 nm may be due to iron, although its position in
Since the environmental predictors were available across the the spectrum makes it difficult to interpret. The eigenvector of the
continent on a 3-arc second grid, we generalised the model trees and second component also had a small positive doublet near 2200 nm
digitally mapped each of the first three PCA scores (which summarise (Fig. 4) that we attributed to kaolinite. The eigenvector of the third
the information content of the vis–NIR spectra of Australian soils) component had strong loadings near 1400 nm, 1912 nm and
across the continent at the same spatial resolution. Prediction error 2207 nm, which we attributed to Al–OH in smectite and smaller

Table 4
The number of rules and validation statistics for the models used to digitally map the information content of the vis–NIR spectra of Australian soils, as summarised by the first three
principal components (PC1, PC2 and PC3). The 10-fold cross validation (xval) was performed on all 4606 observations. To independently test the models, they were trained using
3600 observations and tested using the remaining observations.

Principal component No. of rules rxval R2xval nRMSExval RExval rtest R2test nRMSEtest REtest

PC1 12 0.69 0.48 0.15 0.69 0.65 0.42 0.16 0.72

PC2 9 0.56 0.31 0.13 0.85 0.55 0.30 0.12 0.86
PC3 5 0.65 0.42 0.09 0.73 0.63 0.40 0.11 0.74
1448 R.A.V. Rossel, C. Chen / Remote Sensing of Environment 115 (2011) 1443–1455

absorptions near 2340 nm and 2450 nm, which are due to illite
(Post & Noble, 1993). Small loadings near 920 nm were also evident
and are attributed to goethite. The positive loadings of the third
component showed absorption near 640 nm (Fig. 4).
A correlation matrix between the principal component scores and
selected soil properties is given in Table 3. We present these
correlations to show that soil properties are dependent on the
mineral and organic composition of the soil and hence to the
information content of vis–NIR spectra, as summarised by the PCA
scores.
The scores of the first principal component were only weakly
correlated to clay content and CEC. This component primarily
accounted for hematite (Fig. 4). The scores of the second component
were moderately correlated to total organic carbon (TOC) and CEC but
less so to clay content, although there was good correlation between
clay content and CEC (Table 3). The scores of the third component
showed strong correlation to clay content, CEC and pHw, and
moderate negative correlation to TOC (Table 3). Generally, these
correlations were in agreement with the interpretations of the
eigenvector loadings shown in Fig. 4.

3.2. Digital soil mapping

3.2.1. Predictive spatial modelling of the principal components

The statistical distribution of the second and third principal
components were negatively skewed (Fig. 3) with skewness values
smaller than −1. To stabilise variances, the second component was
log-transformed to approximately a normal distribution, using an
offset to ensure non-zero values prior to the log10 transformation (i.e.
log10[2–PC2]), and the third component was transformed using an
offset to ensure non-zero values but this time with a square root
transformation (i.e. 4–√PC3).
The validation statistics for the models are given in Table 4.
The cross and test set validations produced similar statistics
(Table 4), indicating that the models were robust. The statistics for the
models of principal components 1 and 3 showed good correlations
between the observed versus the predicted, while component 2
produced only moderate correlation (Table 4). The nRMSE values of
the three components ranged from 9% to 15%, the largest being for the
model of component 1. The RE values of components 1 and 3 were
smaller than those of component 2 (Table 4), but all three had RE
values less than 1.

3.2.2. Usefulness of the environmental predictors and digital soil

mapping
Relief and rainfall were used most frequently in the conditions of
principal component 1 (Fig. 5a). Vegetation, solar radiation, potential
evapotranspiration (PET), MrVBF and geology were used less
frequently, respectively (Fig. 5a).
The map of the first component (Fig. 6a) depicts the distribution of
highly weathered landscapes with soils that contain large amounts of
hematite (shown by the features of the corresponding eigenvector in
Fig. 4), which occur in association with kaolinite. This is evident
mostly in the older Western Plateau, but also in higher landscapes of
the Interior Lowlands and in the Eastern Uplands along the Great
Dividing Range (Fig. 6a). The predictors that were used most
frequently in the linear models of principal component 1, were solar
radiation, minimum temperature, PET, Landsat band 3 (the red band
[630–690 nm] that relates to the colour of hematite), maximum
temperature, Landsat band 1 (450–520 nm), Landsat band 6 (10,400–
12,500 nm), gamma radiometrics total dose and Th (Fig. 5a).

Fig. 5. Contribution of individual predictors (covariates) to the model trees in both the
conditionals and linear models used to predict (a) principal component 1 (PC1), (b)
principal component 2 (PC2), and (c) principal component 3 (PC3).
 R.A.V. Rossel, C. Chen / Remote Sensing of Environment 115 (2011) 1443–1455 1449

Fig. 6. Maps of the information content of the vis–NIR spectra of surficial Australian soils as summarised by the first three principal component scores: (a) principal component 1
(PC1), (c) principal component 2 (PC2), and (e) principal component 3 (PC3). Their corresponding error maps are shown in (b), (d) and (f). The length of the Great Dividing Range is
shown by the white line boundary between the Interior Lowlands and the Eastern Uplands. Black areas in the maps represent ephemeral lakes and natural water bodies.

Therefore continentally, the state factors important for the predictions
of principal component 1 were c, s and p (Eq. 3).
The positive loadings in the eigenvector of principal component 1
(Fig. 4), although small, were diagnostic of Al–OH in clay minerals
found in eastern Australia and in south-western Western Australia
(Fig. 6a). The error map for principal component 1 shown in Fig. 6b
highlights the influence of climate on the predictions. Prediction error
was smaller in areas across the centre and west of Australia,
increasing towards the coast in the north, east, south-east and
south-west.
Landsat band 2 (520–600 nm), gamma radiometric U:K and Th:K
ratios, DEM, MrVBF, gamma K and Landsat band 5 (1550–1750 nm),
were also used frequently in the linear models of principal component
1 (Fig. 5a). These predictors relate to p and r (Eq. 3), which provide
some of the information that represents the variability of the soil at
regional and landscape scales (Figs. 6a and 7).
1450 R.A.V. Rossel, C. Chen / Remote Sensing of Environment 115 (2011) 1443–1455

Fig. 7. Maps of the soil information content of principal component 1 (PC1) for a region in south-west Western Australia. The maps show the increasing level of detail at spatial scales
ranging from the continental (Fig. 6a), state, regional and landscape scales. Black areas in the maps represent ephemeral lakes and natural water bodies.

Fig. 8. Maps of the soil information content of principal component 2 (PC2) for a region across southern Queensland and northern New South Wales. The white line in the east
separates the Eastern Uplands and the Interior Lowlands and follows the Great Dividing Range. The maps show the increasing level of detail at spatial scales ranging from the
continental (Fig. 6c), state, regional and landscape scales. Black areas in the maps represent ephemeral lakes and natural water bodies.
 R.A.V. Rossel, C. Chen / Remote Sensing of Environment 115 (2011) 1443–1455 1451

Fig. 9. Maps of the soil information content of principal component 3 (PC3) for a region near the Murray–Darling Basin of northern New South Wales. The white line in the east
separates the Eastern Uplands and the Interior Lowlands and follows the Great Dividing Range, while in the west it separates the Interior Lowlands and the Western Plateau. The
maps show the increasing level of detail at spatial scales ranging from the continental (Fig. 6e), state, regional and landscape scales. Black areas in the maps represent ephemeral
lakes and natural water bodies.

Relief, FPAR-e, FPAR-r, Landsat band 4 (760–900 nm) slope, aspect
and landscape curvatures were used less frequently in the linear
models (Fig. 5a). They relate to r and o, which contribute to the
characterisation of the local spatial features of the soil that are
apparent in Fig. 7. Fig. 7 shows maps of principal component 1 of a
region in south-west Western Australia, where the mineral suite
comprises primarily kaolinite, hematite and quartz, producing soils
that have acidic pH and small CEC and hence are generally infertile.
Rainfall and solar radiation were used most frequently in the
conditions of principal component 2 (Fig. 5b). The Australian Soil
Classification, DEM, PET, geology and W were used less frequently,
respectively (Fig. 5b). The map of principal component 2 depicts soils
with larger amounts of organic matter (Fig. 4, Table 3). These soils
occur in coastal landscapes where the incidence and amount of annual
rainfall is larger, such as those of southern Australia; in the alpine
regions of New South Wales, south of Canberra; in western Tasmania,
and in the western Interior Lowlands across the low relief landscapes
of the Murray–Darling Basin of New South Wales and the Darling
Downs region of southern Queensland (Fig. 6c). PET, gamma radio-
metrics Th, minimum temperature, solar radiation, gamma total dose
and K, maximum temperature and Landsat bands 1 and 3 were the
predictors used most frequently in the linear models of principal
component 2 (Fig. 5b). Therefore continentally, the factors related to
principal component 2 were primarily c, p, and s (Eq. 3). The positive
loadings in the eigenvector of principal component 2 are very small,
but appear to be related to kaolinite (Fig. 4). The error map is shown in
Fig. 6d. It shows the influence of climate on the predictions, and that
the error was larger for coastal areas, decreasing towards the centre
and north-west of Western Australia.
Gamma radiometrics U:K and Th:K ratios, U, rainfall, W, Landsat
band 2, DEM and FPAR-r were also used frequently in the linear models
(Fig. 5b). They relate to the factors p, c, r and o (Eq. 3). In the models,
they provide information that helps to represent the soil at different
spatial scales (Figs. 6c and 8).
Landscape curvatures, relief, FPAR-e, MrVBF, and Landsat bands 4–6
were used less frequently in the linear models of principal component
2 (Fig. 5b). They provide information related to r, o and help to
characterise the local spatial features of the soil. The maps of principal
component 2 shown in Fig. 8, depict an increasing level of detail for a
region across southern Queensland and northern New South Wales.
These landscapes, approximately following the length of the Great
Dividing Range (Fig. 8), are rich in basalt and have resulted in the
formation of soils with large amounts of clay. These include deep soils
with abundant amounts of kaolinte and hematite when the
weathering is more complete; shallower soils with less iron on the
crests and upper slopes; and a progression to darker, more fertile and
deeper profiles with generally more organic matter and smectitic clay
mineralogy in the lowlands and plains (Fig. 8).
W and DEM were used most frequently in the conditions of
principal component 3 (Fig. 5c). Vegetation, FPAR-e, relief, minimum
temperature and the gamma U:K ratio were used less frequently,
respectively (Fig. 5c). The map of principal component 3 represents
soils with abundant amounts of smectite (shown by the features of its
eigenvector in Fig. 4), which occur primarily in low relief landscapes
of the Interior Lowlands and in the Nullarbor Plains (Fig. 6e). The soils
may also contain small concentrations of goethite as shown by the
small loadings of the eigenvector of the third principal component
near 920 nm (Fig. 4). Maximum temperature, solar radiation, PET,
Landsat bands 5 and 1, gamma Th, FPAR-e, W and gamma total dose
were used most frequently in the linear models of principal
component 3 (Fig. 5c). Thus primarily, the environmental factors
important for the predictions of principal component 3 continentally
1452 R.A.V. Rossel, C. Chen / Remote Sensing of Environment 115 (2011) 1443–1455
Fig. 10. The information content of surficial Australian soil vis–NIR spectra represented as an RGB composite of the scores of the first three principal components. Black areas in the
maps represent ephemeral lakes and natural water bodies.
are c, o and p (Eq. 3). The positive loadings in the eigenvector of
principal component 3 (Fig. 4) may indicate the presence of organic
matter in these soils, which corresponds with the negative correlation
in Table 3. The error map for principal component 3 (Fig. 6f) shows
that the error in the predictions was larger for the smectitic soils with
large amounts of clay, and that the error generally decreased towards
the coast.
Gamma radiometrics K, U:K and Th:K ratios, minimum tempera-
ture, Landsat bands 6, 3 and 2, landscape curvatures, rainfall, DEM and
MrVBF, were frequently used in the linear models of principal
component 3 (Fig. 5c). These predictors represent factors related to
p, c, s and r. They help to represent the variability of the soil at regional
and landscape scales (Figs. 6e and 9).
Relief, FPAR-r, slope and Landsat band 4 were used less frequently in
the linear models of principal component 3 (Fig. 5c). They provide
information related to r and o (Eq. 3), which help to represent the
more local spatial variability of the soil. Fig. 9 shows maps of principal
component 3 near the Murray–Darling Basin of northern New South
Wales. Soil formation in this region is governed by sedimentation and
the soils are predominantly Vertisols (Isbell et al., 1997), with
smectitic mineralogy on the mid-slopes, lowlands and plains. The
soils are generally fertile with large clay contents and CEC, and neutral
to alkaline pH.
4. Discussion and conclusions
We do not use vis–NIR soil spectra as it is more commonly
used to predict soil properties with multivariate calibrations.
Instead, we summarised their information content to produce
high spatial resolution maps that represent the mineral and
organic composition of Australian soils. Our maps might be useful
when reliable, high-resolution quantitative soil information is
needed, e.g. for DSM, for agricultural, environmental and ecological
simulation and forecasting modelling. They might also help to
derive a numerical soil classification based on vis–NIR spectra
(Viscarra Rossel & Webster, in press; Viscarra Rossel et al., in
press). The data might provide an alternative to multi- or hyper-
spectral remote sensing because they contain more soil informa-
tion captured with a higher spectral resolution sensor. Further-
more, since the spectra were collected in the laboratory under
controlled conditions, they are not hampered by vegetation cover
 R.A.V. Rossel, C. Chen / Remote Sensing of Environment 115 (2011) 1443–1455 1453

Fig. 11. A region in northern Queensland showing increasing level of detail at different spatial scales. The length of the Great Dividing Range is shown by the white line boundary
between the Interior Lowlands and the Eastern Uplands. Black areas in the maps represent ephemeral lakes and natural water bodies.

or variable soil surface conditions, and do not require corrections
for atmospheric effects.
The usefulness and versatility of the maps arises from (i) the
integrative nature of the vis–NIR spectra, and (ii) the spatial
modelling approach that we used, which integrates information on
the environmental factors described in Eq. (3) (s, c, o, r, p, a, and n).
The age of the soil (or the time, t, factor in Jenny's original formulation
of the model) is implicitly represented by relief (r) and parent
material (p). Therefore, the maps depict the characteristics, compo-
sition, diversity and distribution of Australian soils, which is
emphasised in the colour composite maps of the three principal
components (Figs. 10–12).
Fig. 10 highlights the contrasting nature of the Australian
landscape. In the Eastern Uplands (that includes Tasmania), the
generally younger, more complex landscapes with more relief and
greater rainfall produce soils with varied mineralogy, and often with
larger amounts of organic matter. Fig. 11 shows close-up portions of
basaltic landscapes along the Great Dividing Range in northern
Queensland. In the rainforest of the east, soils with kaolinitic clay
and iron oxides (mostly hematite) dominate. They are generally
shallow and gravelly on the steeper slopes and deeper and more
fertile on lower slopes and gullies (McKenzie et al., 2004). When
weathering is less complete, the soils are shallower on crests and
upper slopes with a progression to darker, more smectitic deeper
profiles on the lower slopes and plains west of the divide (Fig. 11).
Soil formation in the two riverine plains of the Murray–Darling
Basin in the Interior Lowlands (Fig. 10 and 12b) is governed by
sedimentation where coarser sediments are deposited near the banks
of streams, and finer sediments are deposited further away where the
flow is gentler (McKenzie et al., 2004). Landscapes on lower and
wetter topographic positions give rise to soils with more organic
matter, such as those in central northwest of Tasmania (Fig. 10). In
these lower topographic positions, goethite is the dominant iron oxide
(Figs. 6c and 10). In the Western Plateau (Fig. 10 and 12a), the
landscape is older and drier with soils that are more weathered and
with much less organic matter. Duricrusts (formed from the
accumulation of iron, aluminium, silica or calcium carbonate) play a
role in the preferential weathering of these landscapes (McKenzie et
al., 2004). These areas also include the continental dunes of Australia,
where the dry environment and the sandy parent material have
resulted in soils with limited profile development. The colour
composite map also shows the carbonate-rich soils developed from
limestone or calcareous beach sands around the Great Australian
Bight, including the Nullabor Plain (Fig. 10 and 12a). Carbonates are
also common in soils in South Australia and western New South Wales
and Victoria, and in soils derived from basalt, largely due to the
calcium released during weathering.
The spatial modelling and mapping of the data on a 3-arc second
grid (around 90 m pixel resolution) captured the variability of
the soils that occurs at different spatial scales, from continental to
1454 R.A.V. Rossel, C. Chen / Remote Sensing of Environment 115 (2011) 1443–1455
Fig. 12. (a) The RGB colour composite draped over an exaggerated elevation showing
the Interior Lowlands and Eastern Uplands and (b) the Western Plateau. Black areas in
the maps represent lakes and natural water bodies.
state, regional and landscapes (Figs. 6–12). This was possible because
the model-trees regionalise the landscape using conditionals that
are based on the environmental predictors, and then use local
linear models to fit the data using only the relevant predictors in
each region. In this way, the algorithm mimics what a surveyor might
do heuristically to partition the landscape when mapping soils, but
the benefit of our approach is that the partitioning and the modelling
is done quantitatively.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Australian Collaborative
Land Evaluation Program (ACLEP) and CSIROs Sustainable
Agriculture Flagship (SAF) for supporting this work. We thank
Dr. Patrice de Caritat from Geosciences Australia for supplying us
with subsamples of the soils from the National Geochemical
Survey of Australia (NGSA), Mr. Daniel M. Brough from the
Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Manage-
ment and Mr. Ted Griffin from the Western Australia Department
of Agriculture and Food, for the soils from their respective states.
We thank Dr Sandra Berry for her help and contribution with the
W and FPAR maps. We are grateful to Peter Leppert, Marie
Virueda, Gabrielle Navarrette and Seija Tuomi for their assistance
with the spectroscopic measurements and David Jacquier for help
with the NatSoil database. We thank Tristan Viscarra Rossel for
technical editing.
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