Improving in-situ spectral estimation of wetland soil organic carbon by integrating multiple optimization strategies_V1

Carbon in wetlands is a critical component of the terrestrial carbon pool in the global carbon cycle. Accurate quantification of wetland soil organic carbon (SOC) is essential for sustainable wetland management and climate change mitigation. However, this effort is often hampered by the inaccessibility of wetlands and high economic and labor costs associated with data acquisition. The advent of visible and near–infrared (Vis-NIR) spectroscopy offers a time- and cost-effective method for monitoring SOC content. Considerable efforts have been directed toward estimating wetland SOC using Vis-NIR spectroscopy. However, great differences were reported for the performance of different predictive strategies. This study aims to improve the in-situ spectral estimation accuracy of wetland SOC by testing and evaluating 240 optimization strategies which integrate different pre-treatment technologies, moisture removal algorithms, spectral feature selection methods.