Comparing vis-NIRS, LIBS, and Combined vis-NIRS-LIBS for Intact Soil Core Soil Carbon Measurement

Soil organic carbon (SOC) measurement is critically important to quantify regional and global soil C stocks and better understand soil C biogeochemical processes. Recent studies employing laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and visible-near infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (vis-NIRS) indicate their potential for in situ soil C determination. Visible and near infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and LIBS spectroscopy fundamentally differ and we hypothesize that their integration would provide improved soil C predictions. We report the first rigorous integration of vis-NIRS and LIBS, evaluating the precision of vis-NIRS, LIBS, and combined vis-NIRS-LIBS spectra for simulated in situ soil profile total C (TC), inorganic C (IC) and SOC measurement. Three multivariate variable selection and regression approaches were evaluated for soil C prediction. The highest soil C prediction accuracies were observed using multivariate regression with covariance estimation (MRCE). Inorganic C was best predicted by LIBS, vis-NIRS provided better SOC predictions, and TC was best predicted using combined vis-NIRS-LIBS data. Combined vis-NIRS-LIBS did not consistently increase soil C prediction accuracy. Soil organic C was not well predicted, presumably due to challenges associated with scanning surfaces of intact soil cores, variable SOC chemistries, and low SOC variation in the dataset. Considering the challenging conditions under which combined vis-NIRS-LIBS was tested for soil C measurement, data integration and model calibrations had acceptable performance. Further testing under more controlled soil conditions with samples containing greater SOC diversity is necessary to determine the technical potential of combined vis-NIRS/LIBS for soil C determination.