Spatial Mapping of Soil CO2 Flux in the Yellow River Delta Farmland of China Using Multi-Source Optical Remote Sensing Data

Abstract

The spatial prediction of soil CO2 flux is of great significance for assessing regional climate change and high-quality agricultural development. Using a single satellite to predict soil CO2 flux is limited by climatic conditions and land cover, resulting in low prediction accuracy. To this end, this study proposed a strategy of multi-source spectral satellite coordination and selected seven optical satellite remote sensing data sources (i.e., GF1-WFV, GF6-WFV, GF4-PMI, CB04-MUX, HJ2A-CCD, Sentinel 2-L2A, and Landsat 8-OLI) to extract auxiliary variables (i.e., vegetation indices and soil texture features). We developed a tree-structured Parzen estimator (TPE)-optimized extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) model for the prediction and spatial mapping of soil CO2 flux. SHapley additive explanation (SHAP) was used to analyze the driving effects of auxiliary variables on soil CO2 flux. A scatter matrix correlation analysis showed that the distributions of auxiliary variables and soil CO2 flux were skewed, and the linear correlations between them (r < 0.2) were generally weak. Compared with single-satellite variables, the TPE-XGBoost model based on multiple-satellite variables significantly improved the prediction accuracy (RMSE = 3.23 kg C ha−1 d−1, R2 = 0.73), showing a stronger fitting ability for the spatial variability of soil CO2 flux. The spatial mapping results of soil CO2 flux based on the TPE-XGBoost model revealed that the high-flux areas were mainly concentrated in eastern and northern farmlands. The SHAP analysis revealed that PC2 and the TCARI of Sentinel 2-L2A and the TVI of HJ2A-CCD had significant positive driving effects on the prediction accuracy of soil CO2 flux. The above results indicate that the integration of multiple-satellite data can enhance the reliability and accuracy of spatial predictions of soil CO2 flux, thereby supporting regional agricultural sustainable development and climate change response strategies.