Soil Organic Carbon Estimation from Climate-related Features with Graph Neural Network

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a pivotal role in the global carbon cycle, impacting climate dynamics and necessitating accurate estimation for sustainable land and agricultural management. While traditional methods of SOC estimation face resolution and accuracy challenges, recent advancements harness remote sensing, machine learning, and high-resolution satellite mapping. Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), especially when integrated with positional encoders, offer promise in capturing intricate relationships between soil and climate. Using the LUCAS database, this study compared four GNN operators in the positional encoder framework. Results revealed that the PESAGE and PETransformer models outperformed others in SOC estimation, indicating their potential in capturing the complex interplay between SOC and climate features. Our findings underscore the potential of GNN architectures in advancing SOC prediction, paving the way for future explorations with more advanced GNN models.