Geoderma xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

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Geoderma
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoderma

Modelling and mapping soil organic carbon stocks in Brazil

Lucas Carvalho Gomesa,b, , Raiza Moniz Fariaa, Eliana de Souzaa, Gustavo Vieira Velosoa,
⁎

Carlos Ernesto G.R. Schaefera, Elpídio Inácio Fernandes Filhoa

a
Department of Soil and Plant Nutrition, Federal University of Viçosa, campus UFV, 36570-900 Viçosa, Brazil
b
Farming Systems Ecology Group, Wageningen University & Research, P.O. Box 430, 6700, AK, Wageningen, the Netherlands

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Handling Editor: Alex McBratney Brazil has extensive forests and savannas on deep weathered soils and plays a key role in the discussions about
Keywords: carbon sequestration, but the distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks up to 1 m depth has not been
Soil carbon stock investigated in Brazil using machine learning techniques. In this study, we applied a methodological framework
Machine learning to optimize the prediction of SOC stocks for the entire Brazilian territory and determine how the environmental
Spatial prediction heterogeneity of Brazil influences the SOC stocks distribution. We used a legacy dataset of 8227 soil profiles
Protected areas which consisted of 37,693 samples. For each profile, the vertical distribution of SOC and bulk density were
Random Forests interpolated to standard depths (0–5, 5–15, 15–30, 30–60 and 60–100 cm) using mass preserving equal-area
quadratic splines. The covariates database was composed of 74 variables including bioclimatic (temperature and
precipitation) data, soil and biome maps, vegetation indexes and morphometric maps derived from a digital
elevation model, with a 1 km spatial resolution. To obtain the best prediction performance, we tested four
machine learning algorithms: Random Forests, Cubist, Generalized Linear Model Boosting and Support Vector
Machines. Random Forests showed the best performance in predicting SOC stocks for all depths, with the highest
performance at 30–60 cm for training (R2 = 0.32) and validation (R2 = 0.33); hence, it was selected for the
spatial prediction of SOC stocks. The most important covariates selected by Random Forests using the recursive
feature elimination were: soil class, sum of monthly mean temperature (SAMT), precipitation, slope height and
vegetation indexes (NDVI, GPP). In total, Brazilian soils store approximately 71.3 PgC within the top 100 cm,
where the first 0–30 cm contains almost 36 PgC. Approximately 31% of the total SOC stocks (22.2 PgC) occurs in
protected areas (2.6 million km2), which are not subjected to land use pressure and carbon losses. Although the
Amazon biome has the highest amount of stored SOC (36.1 PgC), its soils do not represent a good potential for
carbon accumulation. Among soil classes, the Luvisols showed the lowest SOC density (6.45 kg m−2) and the
Histosols presented the highest values (14.87 kg m−2). More than 57% of the total SOC was found in nutrient-
poor, deep-weathered Ferralsols and Acrisols, which are the dominant soils in Brazil. The presented methodo-
logical framework covers all steps of prediction process, building maps with known accuracy and has great
potential to be used in future soil carbon inventories at large scales. Concerning conservation issues, the results
highlight the importance of nature reserves for protecting SOC in the long-term.

1. Introduction
Soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks are the largest reservoir of carbon
in the biosphere, important sinks of CO2 from the atmosphere (Batjes,
1998; Davidson and Janssens, 2006; Lal, 2004), and have the potential
to mitigate the impacts of present-day and future climate changes
(Edenhofer et al., 2014). However, the prediction of global SOC stocks
is highly variable; Scharlemann et al. (2014) reviewed 27 studies and
found values varying from 504 to 3000 PgC (mean of 1460.5 PgC) up to
1 m depth, possibly resulting from different soil data and methods
employed. The development of digital soil mapping (DSM) technologies
and their applications (McBratney et al., 2003) enabled mapping SOC
stocks from local to continental scales, using the scorpan factors (e.g.,
soil, climate, organisms, material parent) (Minasny et al., 2013).
Mapping SOC stocks in large and heterogeneous environments using the
scorpan factors is a challenge due to high variability and sample data
availability, but it is crucial to improve global estimates of SOC stocks
and highlight the main drivers to support carbon inventories and policy

Corresponding author at: Department of Soil and Plant Nutrition, Federal University of Viçosa, campus UFV, 36570-900 Viçosa, Brazil.
⁎

E-mail addresses: lucas.c.gomes@ufv.br (L.C. Gomes), raiza.faria@ufv.br (R.M. Faria), eliana.souza@ufv.br (E. de Souza), gustavo.veloso@ufv.br (G.V. Veloso),
carlos.schaefer@ufv.br (C.E.G.R. Schaefer), elpidio@ufv.br (E.I.F. Filho).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2019.01.007
Received 1 December 2017; Received in revised form 23 November 2018; Accepted 3 January 2019
0016-7061/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Gomes, L.C., Geoderma, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2019.01.007

L.C. Gomes et al.
decisions. The climate and environmental heterogeneity of Brazil, from
humid tropical to semiarid zones, makes it uniquely suitable for cou-
pling methodological prediction approaches to assess the SOC stocks
distribution and to understand how the scorpan factors control SOC
stocks distribution, at large scale.
The SOC stocks depend on the balance between carbon inputs and
outputs and the environmental conditions (scorpan factors) that, di-
rectly or indirectly affect the processes controlling the spatial dis-
tribution of SOC stocks. At global and continental scales, the SOC stock
distribution is mainly controlled by climate conditions, such as tem-
perature and precipitation, increasing with higher precipitation and
lower temperatures (Hengl et al., 2015; Minasny et al., 2013). Soil
texture also influences SOC stocks, and clay amounts are key to SOC
protection (Powers et al., 2011), due to interactions between the SOC
and reactive surfaces of clay minerals (Grüneberg et al., 2013; Mayer,
1994). Vegetation also plays a key role in the SOC stocks favoring the
input of decaying plant biomass, especially in the topsoil (0–30 cm)
(Bui et al., 2009), and vegetation indexes, such as NDVI, have been used
to predict SOC stocks (Yang et al., 2016b). In areas with large topo-
graphic variations the SOC is reasonably predicted by terrain attributes,
such as elevation, slope and curvature (Fissore et al., 2017; Nyssen
et al., 2008; Oueslati et al., 2013). The combinations of these different
environmental factors create unique local conditions, leading to in-
creasing or decreasing SOC stocks, being useful to predict the spatial
distribution of SOC stocks in the DSM.
Several models are used to estimate the spatial distribution of SOC
including machine learning algorithms, such as the Random Forests
(Hengl et al., 2015; Hounkpatin et al., 2018; Ließ et al., 2016; Wang
et al., 2018; Yang et al., 2016a), Cubist (Adhikari et al., 2014; Gray
et al., 2015; Rossel et al., 2016), Support Vector Machines-SVM (Ließ
et al., 2016; Ottoy et al., 2017; Rudiyanto et al., 2018; Wang et al.,
2018) and kriging-based models (Bonfatti et al., 2016; Gamble et al.,
2017). The application of predictive models should follow the principle
of parsimony – Occam's razor – suggesting that the best model can
explain the same phenomena using fewer variables without loss of
performance (Batty and Torrens, 2001). The use of fewer predictive
variables enables a better understanding of the main drivers and
quicker computer processing (Brungard et al., 2015). Aiming to create
simpler models, the Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) algorithm is
widely applied to backward select optimal subsets of variables, while
maintaining model performance (Ballabio, 2009; Brungard et al., 2015;
Hounkpatin et al., 2018; Stevens et al., 2013; Vašát et al., 2017).
Soil carbon mapping is usually done in 2 dimensions (2D) at a single
soil depth interval. However, the SOC is highly variable with soil depth,
and studies have modelled the vertical distribution of SOC using ne-
gative exponential functions and interpolation (Minasny et al., 2006;
Mishra et al., 2009). Equal area quadratic splines are also used to
harmonize the soil data by depth (Bishop et al., 1999), enabling the
creation of models to map soil characteristics in 3D (Adhikari et al.,
2013; Mulder et al., 2016). The study of SOC stocks in the entire soil
depth is important since it provides information of carbon pools less
prone to climatic variations, as the SOC stored at subsurface has higher
stability and protection, compared with in the upper layers (Fontaine
et al., 2007). The distribution of SOC stocks in the upper layers
(0–50 cm) is mainly explained by environmental variables, and it re-
mains a challenge to find covariates that explain subsurface SOC stocks
variability. The discovery of such covariates can improve our under-
standing of the processes leading to carbon sinks and resilience in deep
soils.
Regardless of the model used for SOC stocks mapping, the predic-
tion process has an uncertainty that can be assessed by Monte Carlo
simulation (Meersmans et al., 2009), Bootstrap (Pan and Politis, 2016)
or by the prediction interval (PI) based on the difference of the residuals
between the modelled outputs and corresponding observed data
(Shrestha and Solomatine, 2006; Solomatine and Shrestha, 2009).
Using regression kriging Malone et al. (2011) implemented the PI
2
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method in the DSM to create prediction and uncertainty maps. The
GlobalSoilMap (GSM) project defined the uncertainty as the 90% PI
that describes the range of values within which the true value is ex-
pected to occur 9 times out of 10, with a 1 out of 20 probability for each
of the two tails (Arrouays et al., 2014).
The aims of the present study were to: i) model the vertical dis-
tribution of SOC, bulk density and SOC stocks in soil profiles, ii) analyse
the effect of sub-setting the covariate set on prediction performance, iii)
select the best model for prediction of SOC stocks, iv) predict the hor-
izontal and vertical spatial distribution of SOC stocks across the
Brazilian territory and analyze the SOC stocks per biome, soil type and
within protected areas.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area
The Brazilian territory covers an 8.5 million km2 area from 05° 16′
19″ N to 33° 45′ 07″ S latitude and 34° 47′ 34″ E to 73° 59′ 26″ W
longitude, with the highest elevation of 2972 m in the Amazon region.
Its geographical position enables a wide range of biodiversity, with six
biomes possessing different climatic conditions, mostly tropical
(Fig. 1a). The majority of soils in Brazil are deep weathered Ferralsols
and Acrisols, summing up more than 60% of Brazil's area (Fig. 1b)
(IBGE and EMBRAPA, 2001), whereas Histosols cover only 1613 km2
and Chernosols 33,685 km2.
The Amazon biome covers almost half of Brazil (49.29%), with a
humid tropical climate (Af, Am and Aw), mean annual rainfall greater
than 3100 mm, and mean annual temperature of 25.9 to 27.7 °C. The
Cerrado biome (Brazilian savannas) is the second largest biome, cov-
ering 22% of the territory, with a predominantly semi-humid climate
(Aw), mean annual temperature between 22 and 23 °C and mean annual
precipitation between 1200 and 1800 mm. The Atlantic Forest biome in
eastern Brazil extends from the coast to the interior dissected plateau
and has the highest diversity of environments, characterized by well-
drained highlands. In this biome, there are diverse climate types (Cfb,
Cfa, Cwb, Aw and As), with a mean annual temperature of 11 to 26 °C
depending on the altitude and mean annual precipitation between 700
and 1500 mm. The Caatinga biome is the driest biome, under a semi-
arid climate (Bsh), with an annual average rainfall of 500 mm and mean
annual temperature of 20 to 29 °C. The Pantanal biome is characterized
by long periods of flooding, seasonal Aw climate with a mean annual
temperature of 22 to 24 °C and mean annual precipitation between
1000 and 1600 mm. The Pampa biome in southern Brazil is covered by
temperate grasslands with a Cfa climate, mean annual temperature of
14 to 20 °C and mean annual precipitation between 1300 and 2500 mm.
Across the whole territory, Brazil has a large extent of natural protected
areas, especially in the Amazon biome (Fig. 1c), covering about 29% of
the country.
2.2. Soil data
We used legacy soil data that was mainly produced by the
RadamBrasil Project, which consisted of a Brazilian national systematic
soil survey program from 1973 to 1986. These data comprise in-
formation on the soil classes and soil properties of representative lo-
cations across the territory. Part of the data was compiled by Cooper
et al. (2005) and contains 8227 soil profiles (Fig. 1a), accounting for
37,693 soil samples widely distributed across the country. Nonetheless,
the density of soil profiles varies among the biomes, with the Atlantic
Forest showing the highest value with 2.1 soil profiles per 1000 km2,
followed by Caatinga (1.5), Pantanal (1.3), Cerrado (1.2), Pampa (1.0)
and, Amazon with only 0.5 soil profile per 1000 km2.
The soil bulk density is essential for calculating the SOC stocks, but
within the soil samples database, only 10% (3278 samples) had soil
bulk density values. Pedotransfer functions are widely used to estimate
L.C. Gomes et al.
Fig. 1. Brazilian biomes and the distribution of soil profiles used to calculate the soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks (a), soil classes (b) and protected areas in Brazil (c).
the soil bulk density of missing depths (Abdelbaki, 2018; Rodríguez-
Lado et al., 2015; Tranter et al., 2007), but Brazil does not have a
countrywide pedotransfer function (PTF) for bulk density, and few
functions have been published for specific regions (Benites et al., 2007;
Bernoux et al., 1998; Souza et al., 2016; Tomasella and Hodnett, 1998).
To overcome this problem, we used chemical and physical soil prop-
erties data to calibrate a bulk density pedotransfer function (PTF). The
PTF was calibrated using a linear model based on SOC and clay content,
resulting in a linear regression model (Eq. (1)): BD = 1.5701–0.06834
(SOC) − 0.00568 (clay) with an R2 of 0.52. The assessment of the PTF
accuracy, using randomly selected 75% of the data to build the function
and 25% to validation (holdout), showed root mean squared error
(RMSE) of 0.15 and mean absolute error (MAE) equal to 0.114.
After the missing data depths were filled with BD estimates we
harmonized the soil data (BD and SOC) vertically over the 100 cm depth
in standard depths by applying the mass preserving spline (Bishop
et al., 1999; Malone et al., 2009) function of the GSIF package (Hengl
et al., 2017). For each spline we used a smoothing parameter value of
0.1 leading to values of BD and SOC for each cm of the profile. Five
depth intervals were defined (0–5, 5–15, 15–30, 30–60, and
60–100 cm) according to GlobalSoilMap specifications (Arrouays et al.,
2014) and the values of BD and SOC represent the average values at
each interval. The SOC stock was calculated per soil depth according to
Eq. (2). The legacy data did not report stoniness, and for this reason, we
did not include this variable in Eq. (2).
SOC stocks = [SOC content × Ds × D]/ 100
−2
In which SOC stocks are reported in kg m , SOC content (g kg
soil bulk density (Ds) (g cm−3), and soil thickness (D) (cm).
2.3. Environmental covariates
To model the spatial distribution of SOC stocks we used environ-
mental covariates related to the scorpan factors (Table 1). A set of 18
morphometric maps was generated using a digital elevation model
(DEM). These maps were generated using the RSAGA package
(Brenning, 2008). The maps include elevation, slope, aspect, curva-
tures, valleys, hills and other aspects of the terrain topography. The
DEM was derived from a radar image from the Shuttle Radar Topo-
graphy Mission – SRTM with a 90 m spatial resolution (Jarvis et al.,
2008).
The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the gross
Geoderma xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
primary production (GPP) index from MODIS satellite imagery were
included as proxies of the vegetation cover, representing the “biolo-
gical” factor. Additionally, the map of Brazilian Biomes was also con-
sidered as a possible predictor variable, since the biomes relate to dif-
ferent vegetation types and therefore can affect the distribution of SOC
stocks spatially and by depth, across the regions.
The relationship of SOC stocks with climate factors was investigated
by assessing the significance of temperature and precipitation from
1970 to 2000. These climate variables were obtained from the
WordClim Data Portal (Hijmans et al., 2005). Temperature is an im-
portant variable that affects soil carbon dynamics, and thus we summed
the mean temperature of each month at each pixel to create a unique
covariate map that we called “sum of monthly mean temperature”
(SAMT).
A group of 12 maps of bioclimatic variables (Bio 2, Bio 3, … Bio 13)
(Hijmans et al., 2005) was evaluated as potential climate soil factor
predictors of SOC stocks. A description of the variables is shown in
Table 1. The bioclimatic variables are more biologically significant,
than using only temperature and precipitation, as climate proxies.
Bioclimatic variables were derived from the monthly temperature and
rainfall data from 1970 to 2000. These biologically meaningful vari-
ables represent annual trends (e.g., mean annual temperature, annual
precipitation) seasonality (e.g., annual range in temperature and pre-
cipitation) and extreme or limiting environmental factors (e.g., the
temperature of the coldest and warmest month, and precipitation of the
wet and dry quarters). We included a map of Brazil's climatic zones
(2)
according to Koppen classification (Alvares et al., 2013).
−1
), To account for parent material effects on the SOC stocks, we used a
geological map (CPRM, 2004) and the pedological map published by
IBGE and EMBRAPA (2001). The pedological map contains the soil
spatial distribution of all soil orders, and was updated to the current
System of Soil Classification - SiBCS (Santos, 2011). All covariate maps
were resampled to a common 1 km grid cell using the Equal Area
Lambert Projection System.
2.4. Methodological framework
To predict reliable maps of SOC stocks with known accuracy, we
applied a methodological framework that aggregated different meth-
odologies to optimize the prediction process and estimate the un-
certainty (Fig. 2). The methodological framework was applied to each
soil depth separately, covering all stages of model prediction, with
3
L.C. Gomes et al. Geoderma xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 1
Groups of covariates from which the most important sets of predictors for SOC stocks were selected.
Morphometric Temperature Bioclimatic Precipitation Vegetation Soil/parent material

Elevation Tmean 1 Bio 2 Precipitation 1 Biome Soil class

Aspect Tmean 2 Bio 3 Precipitation 2 NDVI Lithology
Curvature flow line Tmean 3 Bio 4 Precipitation 3 GPP
Curvature profile Tmean 4 Bio 5 Precipitation 4
Curvature maximal Tmean 5 Bio 6 Precipitation 5
Curvature minimal Tmean 6 Bio 7 Precipitation 6
Curvature plan Tmean 7 Bio 8 Precipitation 7
Curvature total Tmean 8 Bio 9 Precipitation 8
Hill Tmean 9 Bio 10 Precipitation 9
Mid-slope position Tmean 10 Bio 11 Precipitation 10
Normalized height Tmean 11 Bio 12 Precipitation 11
Slope Tmean 12 Bio 13 Precipitation 12
Slope height Tmin 1 Koppen Annual Precipitation
Standardized height Tmin 2
Terrain surface convexity Tmin 3
Terrain surface texture Tmin 4
Valley depth Tmin 5
Valley Tmin 6
Tmin 7
Tmin 8
Tmin 9
Tmin 10
Tmin 11
Tmin 12
Sum of monthly mean temperature (SAMT)

Tmean: monthly mean temperature (1, 2, 3 … 12 = Jan. Feb. Marc., … Dec.), Tmin: monthly minimum temperature.
Koppen: map of climate zones according to Koppen classification.
Precipitation 1, 2, 3, … 12 (monthly rainfall of Jan., Feb., Marc, … Dec.)
GPP: Gross Primary Production vegetation index from MODIS imagery.
Bioclimatic variables (Bio 2 = Mean Diurnal Range (Mean of monthly (max temp - min temp)), Bio 3 = Isothermality (BIO2/BIO7) (∗100), Bio 4 = Temperature
Seasonality (standard deviation ∗ 100), Bio 5 = Max Temperature of Warmest Month, Bio 6 = Min Temperature of Coldest Month, Bio 7 = Temperature Annual
Range (BIO5-BIO6), Bio 8 = Mean Temperature of Wettest Quarter, Bio 9 = Mean Temperature of Driest Quarter, Bio 10 = Mean Temperature of Warmest Quarter,
Bio 11 = Mean Temperature of Coldest Quarter, Bio 12 = Annual Precipitation, Bio 13 = Precipitation of Wettest Month).

methods for variable selection, model selection, prediction of SOC
stocks and uncertainty analysis using prediction intervals.
2.5. Environmental covariates and model selection
Several potential covariates are available to predict SOC stocks, but
using all available covariates is time consuming and computationally
expensive; to overcome this problem, we applied the ‘recursive feature
elimination - RFE’ algorithm of the Caret package (Kuhn, 2017) to se-
lect a representative group of covariates to predict the SOC stocks. The
RFE is a backward selection algorithm that iteratively eliminates the
least promising predictors from the model based on an initial predictor
importance measure (Kuhn and Johnson, 2013). It is implemented
within a model-based procedure selection which is compatible with the
Cubist, Random Forests and Linear models. RFE was run with the full
set of covariates (Table 1), and eighteen subsets: 5, 6, 7 … 20, 25, 30
and/or 40 covariates. The selection of the optimal subset of covariates
was based on the cross-validation with 5-folds and accuracy metric R-
squared for each subset.
In recent years, the use of data-driven machine learning models,
such as tree-based methods, has gained popularity in the digital soil
mapping field. In this study, we compared four machine learning
methods (Random Forests, Cubist, Support Vector Machines and
Generalized Linear Models) with different characteristics to assess the
most accurate prediction of SOC stocks. These models mainly differ in
how they manage the training dataset, which can result in one variable
being important to model x but not important for model y. To overcome
this and enable a comparison of model's performance, we used each
model separately to select their optimal set of covariates applying the
RFE approach, which means that covariates for prediction with Random
Forests were selected with RFE-Random Forests bases, Cubist used RFE-
Cubist and so forth.
Random Forests algorithm was developed to perform both classifi-
cation and regression (Breiman, 2001). The model is based on the idea
of ensemble learning (bagging), known for its ability to reduce the
experimental noise and enhance the prediction accuracy by aggregating
several different predictions. A large set of random trees are constructed
during the model training, which are merged into a single prediction.
Each tree, on the forest, is constructed based on a unique bootstrap
sample of the original training data with each bootstrap set leaving out
about one-third of the observations (Hastie et al., 2009). Accuracy is
reached with low bias and low variance as a large number of trees are
averaged, thereby providing a reliable error estimation based on the
remaining dataset, called the out-of-bag (OOB) data. Three parameters
have to be defined for model training: the number of trees (ntree) in the
forest, the minimum number of data points in each terminal node
(nodesize), and the number of features tried at each node (mtry). The
‘mtry’ is the only parameter that requires special judgment (Breiman,
2002), and is the parameter used for model optimization on the Caret
package, used in this study.
Cubist is a rule-based model built as an extension of M5 tree model
(Quinlan, 1992). Its structure consists of a conditional component - or
piecewise function - acting as a decision tree, coupled with multiple
linear regression models (Kuhn, 2017). It is similar to a typical re-
gression tree model in terms of being a data-partitioning algorithm that
allows non-linear relationships in observed data to be explored. The
model recursively partitions the data into subsets, which are more in-
ternally homogeneous with respect to the target variable and covariates
than the dataset as a whole. A regression model is fitted for each rule
based on the data subset defined by the model rules. A series of rules,
hierarchically arranged, defines the recursive partitioning of the pre-
diction variable in order to minimize the standard deviation across all
potential splits (Wilford and Thomas, 2013).
Support vector machines (SVM) are a set of supervised learning

4
L.C. Gomes et al.
Fig. 2. Methodological flowchart showing the sequence of methodologies applied for soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks prediction. The most accurate model between
Cubist, Random Forests (RF), Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Generalized Linear Models (GLM) was selected to model and map the SOC stocks maps: 5th
percentile (Lower (Q5)), Mean values (mean), 95th percentile (Upper (Q95)), and the coefficient of variation (CV).
techniques, for classification and regression, proposed by Cortes and
Vapnik (1995). Originally developed as an algorithm for classification,
it searches for a hyperplane which leaves the largest possible margin
between classes, leading to a better generalization probability (Ließ
et al., 2016). The SVM for regression has inherited some of the prop-
erties of the SVM classifier in its configuration (Hastie et al., 2009). In
the case of regression, the model searches for a function which fulfills
the error criterion, in which, points on the correct side of the decision
boundary and far away from it are ignored in the model optimization.
These are called the “low error” points, and they are the ones with small
residuals. Points outside the margin are allowed while a penalty weight
is introduced. The penalty determines the trade-off between allowing
points outside and the flatness of the regression function and is parti-
cularly important to decrease the impact of outliers (Smola and
Schölkopf, 2004). Within SVM, non-linear regression is typically
achieved by applying the so-called Kernel Trick. For this, the training
data are first transformed into a higher-dimensional feature space by
applying a non-linear kernel function. Then a linear model is adapted to
this new feature space (Olson and Delen, 2008) and finally, the linear
regression in the new feature space is equivalent to a non-linear re-
gression in the original predictor space. The generalization performance
of SVM depends on a good setting of hyperparameters (Cherkassky and
Ma, 2004). The parameters used on the model tuning on the Caret
Package (Kuhn, 2008) includes the penalty (cost) that controls the
trade-off between margin and training errors, and the kernel width
(sigma) that controls the degree of nonlinearity of the model.
5
Geoderma xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
Generalized Linear Models (GLM) is one of the mathematical ex-
tensions of linear regression models that account for nonlinearity and
inhomogeneous variance structures in the data (Hastie and Tibshirani,
1990). In concept, a GLM is based on an assumed relationship (called a
link function) between the mean of the dependent variable and the
linear combination of the explanatory variables. The link function al-
lows distributions other than a normal distribution to be used for pre-
dictions (Lane, 2002). GLM models, unlike standard regression models,
allow incorporating both categorical and quantitative factors in the
regression analysis. The boosting procedure originally developed in the
machine learning community, primarily to handle classification pro-
blems, has been successfully translated into the statistical field
(Breiman, 1998; Friedman, 2001) and extended to many statistical
problems. Due to its resistance to overfitting, it is particularly useful in
the construction of prediction models. Its iterative nature, allows
straightforward adaptations to cope with high-dimensional data,
through its component-wise version (Buehlmann, 2006; Bühlmann and
Yu, 2003). The basic idea of boosting is to provide estimates of the
parameters (e.g., the regression coefficients) by updating their values
step by step. At each iteration, a “weak” estimator is fitted onto a
modified version of the data, with the goal of minimizing a pre-speci-
fied loss function. The obtained value provides a small contribution
used to update the estimate of the parameters: the result of all the
contributions is the final estimate. In essence, it combines a set of ‘weak
learners’ creating a single ‘strong learner’ (Ridgeway, 2017). Boosting
relies on two tuning parameters. A first parameter controls the
L.C. Gomes et al.
“weakness” of the estimator and is usually called the penalty or
boosting step size. A second much more influential tuning parameter is
related to the stopping criterion, i.e., specifies how many boosting
iterations are performed.
To select the most accurate model, we predicted SOC stocks ap-
plying each model separately using their own optimal subset of cov-
ariates selected by the RFE analysis. The data was randomly separated
in 80% for training and 20% for validation (Holdout). We used cross
validation with 5 folds to optimize the model on selecting the best
hyperparameters using the training dataset. The model's performance
was evaluated applying the fitted model to validation data (20%) and
the accuracy was expressed by the statistical indexes: R-square - R2 (Eq.
(3)), root mean squared error - RMSE (Eq. (4)), mean absolute error -
MAE, (Eq. (5)). For each model the process was repeated 50 times with
their own subset of variables and compared by the mean values of the
accuracy parameters (R2, RMSE and MAE). The process of several re-
petitions is important to determine the variability of the prediction
since different groups of training and validation datasets can generate
different accuracy results (Kuhn and Johnson, 2013).
n
i=1
(Pi Om)2
R2 = n
( Om i Om)2 (3)
i=1
1 N 1/2
RMSE = (Pi Oi ) 2
N i=1 (4)
N
i=1
|Pi Oi |
MAE =
n (5)
In Eqs. (3), (4) and (5), Oi represents the SOC stocks calculated for
each soil depth and Om the average of these values, Pi is the SOC stocks
predicted by the Random Forests model and n is the number of loca-
tions used for the prediction.
2.6. Prediction and uncertainty of SOC stocks maps
To build the SOC stocks maps at different depths, we selected among
the four models the one that presented the best performance to run 100
predictions allocating randomly 80% of the data to training and 20%
for validation as described in detail in Section 2.5. This resulted in 100
maps of SOC stocks for each soil depth, and the final map of SOC stocks
was the resulting mean value for each pixel. The performance was
evaluated in terms of R2 (Eq. (3)), RMSE (Eq. (4)) and MAE (Eq. (5)).
The SOC stocks predicted for each soil depth (i.e., 0–5, 5–15, 15–30,
30–60, 60–100 cm) were aggregated to a 0–100 cm soil depth and
stratified by biome, soil class, and protected areas.
Based on the 100 predictions of SOC stocks for each depth we
computed the upper (Q95) and lower (Q5) percentiles for each pixel,
resulting in maps of SOC stocks for upper and lower percentiles. The
uncertainty was estimated as the difference between the 95th and the
5th percentiles (i.e. 90% prediction interval), as proposed by the
GlobalSoilMap project (Arrouays et al., 2014). Additionally, we calcu-
late the coefficient of variation (CV % = standard deviation / mean) of
the 100 times predictions of SOC stocks for each pixel at the different
soil depths.
3. Results
3.1. Vertical distribution of soil properties
Countrywide, the SOC varied from 0.01 to 205.8 g kg−1 in the
topsoil (0–30 cm) and 0 to 38.27 g kg−1 in the subsoil (30–100 cm)
(Table 2). The mean SOC decreased with depth, from 17.18 g kg−1 in
the topsoil to 4.55 g kg−1 in the subsoil. The coefficient of variation
(CV) of the SOC also decreased with depth, from 92.47% at the 0–5 cm
depth to 74.34% at the 60–100 cm depth. The average clay content
varied from 0 to 96.2 dag kg−1 and increased with depth
6
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(30.5 dag kg−1 at 0–5 cm to 41.58 dag kg−1 at 60–100 cm soil depth).
The soil bulk density varied from 0.2 to 1.68 g cm−3, with a mean of
1.28 g cm−3 at the 0–100 cm depth. The SOC stocks varied from 0 to
9.9 kg m−2 and increased with depth, from a mean of 0.98 kg m−2 at
0–5 cm to 2.26 kg m−2 at 60–100 cm. The CV was 65% on average for
all depths.
3.2. Covariates selected and models' performance
The models selected distinct groups of covariates for each soil depth
(Supplementary material - Tables S1.1–S1.5) and performance analysis
shows that, on average, approximately 15 variables had the same per-
formance as when using the total set of 74 variables (Fig. 3). The
Random Forests algorithm showed the highest performance in the RFE
selection, and the most important variables selected for each soil depth
are presented in Table 3. The main characteristics selected were soil
class, vegetation indexes, temperature, and precipitation and morpho-
metric data such as elevation, slope and valley depth.
The Random Forests algorithm also showed the best performance to
predict the SOC stocks from 50 runs, with the highest R2 and lowest
RMSE and MAE for all depths (Fig. 4). Random Forests had an R2 of
0.28 to 0.32 and the performance increased with depth. The second-
best performance was from Cubist, just behind Random Forests. The
SVM algorithm presented moderate performance, and GLM presented
the worst performance for SOC stocks prediction at all depths, with a
maximum of 24% of model variance explained. Hence, the Random
Forests algorithm was selected for spatial prediction of the distribution
of SOC stocks.
The importance of covariates in predicting the SOC stocks by soil
depth show that the soil class was the most important variable to pre-
dict the SOC stocks, contributing 45 to 52% on the decreasing of the
mean accuracy (Fig. 5). Covariates related to vegetation as NDVI and
GPP were important to predict the distribution of SOC stocks at the
surface layer, whereas in deeper layers, the temperature and rainfall
were more important.
3.3. Prediction of SOC stocks
The highest SOC stocks occur in southern Brazil and in northwestern
Amazon located in high elevation and under tropical climate, whereas
the lowest SOC stocks occurred in northeastern Brazil where the climate
is dry and covered by xeric shrublands (Fig. 2). Approximately 71.3 PgC
are stored within the top 100 cm, of which 35.9 PgC are in the 0–30 cm
layer (Fig. 6). The spatial variation of SOC stocks on the maps of the
90% prediction interval (lower and upper) and the prediction of the
mean value follow a similar pattern (Fig. 6). The analysis of the un-
certainty of prediction (Fig. 6) shows that the total amount of SOC
stocks up to 100 cm soil depth can vary from 64.6 to 78 PgC from the
lower and upper limits of 90% prediction interval.
The coefficient of variation of SOC stocks predictions ranged from
0.8 to 42% in the soil depths (Fig. 6, a.4 to e.4). The uncertainty was
higher in the Amazon, Cerrado e Pantanal biomes with values of CV
from 8.51 to 42%. A spatial analysis of the CV in soil depths shows that,
country areas with CV higher than 8.5% account for 21.2% in the
0–5 cm depth, and from 8.4 to 13% in the bellow depths down to
100 cm. An average of 50% of the total area follows within the range of
4.5 to 8.5% of CV on predictions.
The performance of the Random Forests model in predicting the
SOC stocks is summarized in Table 4 and is relative to average values of
100 predictions. The highest performance occurred in the subsurface
(30–60 cm) for training (R2 = 0.32) and validation (R2 = 0.33). The
lowest performance was found at 60–100 cm with R2 = 0.17 for
training and validation data sets. Overall, Random Forests showed good
power of generalization indicated by the similar accuracy results be-
tween cross-validation and holdout for all soil depths.
L.C. Gomes et al. Geoderma xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 2
Descriptive statistics of soil organic carbon (SOC), soil bulk density (Ds), clay content and SOC stocks (number of samples = 8227).
Depth Variable Unity Min Max Mean Sd Median CV (%)

−1
0–5 SOC (g kg ) 0.1 190.5 17.18 15.89 13.56 92
Ds (g cm−3) 0.21 1.66 1.28 0.18 1.31 14
Clay (dag kg−1) 0.01 95.68 30.65 20.27 27.16 66
SOC stock (kg m−2) 0 4.31 0.98 0.64 0.88 65
5–15 SOC (g kg−1) 0.1 177.4 15.31 14.23 12.12 93
Ds (g cm−3) 0.25 1.57 1.29 0.17 1.313 14
Clay (dag kg−1) 0.01 95.28 31.74 20.33 28.77 64
SOC stock (kg m−2) 0.01 8.68 1.78 1.16 1.59 65
15–30 SOC (g kg−1) 0 205.8 11.7 11.7 8.99 100
Ds (g cm−3) 0.21 1.63 1.29 0.16 1.32 13
Clay (dag kg−1) 0.06 95.71 34.7 20.68 32.59 60
SOC stock (kg m−2) 0.01 9.98 2.07 1.44 1.74 70
30–60 SOC (g kg−1) 0 38.27 6.67 5.01 5.28 75
Ds (g cm−3) 0.84 1.68 1.3 0.14 1.32 11
Clay (dag kg−1) 0.01 96.26 38.78 21.17 37.85 55
SOC stock (kg m−2) 0 10 2.47 1.63 2.08 66
60–100 SOC (g kg−1) 0 24.42 4.55 3.38 3.66 74
Ds (g cm−3) 0.89 1.66 1.3 0.13 1.31 10
Clay (dag kg−1) 0.04 96.21 41.58 21.41 40.89 51
SOC stock (kg m−2) 0 9.87 2.26 1.51 1.91 67

Sd: Standard deviation, CV: Coefficient of variation.

Fig. 3. Models' performance in the process of selecting variables for each soil depth using the Recursive Feature Elimination at different soil depths.

3.4. Distribution of SOC stocks by biome, soil classes and in protected areas
Amazon biome possesses the highest amount of carbon (36.10 PgC)
among biomes, and Pantanal the lowest value (0.77 PgC) (Fig. 7a). The
regions with higher SOC stocks at 1 m depth are the northwestern re-
gion of Amazon, southeastern of Atlantic Forest and in dispersed areas
in the Cerrado. The SOC stocks density up to 1 m depth varied much
across the biomes, with the Atlantic Forest having the highest average
value (12.08 kg m−2), especially in the southeast, whereas Pantanal
and Caatinga showed the lowest values (6.04 and 6.40 kg m−2)
(Fig. 7b). The cumulative SOC stocks density was more homogenous in
the first soil layer (0–5 cm) between biomes, whereas deeper layers
showed large differences. In the first layers of soil (0–15 cm) the
average cumulative SOC stock is higher in the forested biomes (Amazon
and Atlantic Forest), while in deeper layers the highest values are found
in the Atlantic Forest biome. More than 57% of the total SOC stocks
were found in Ferralsols and Acrisols. However, Histosols showed the
highest SOC stocks density (14.87 kg m−2) and Luvisols the lowest
(6.45 kg m−2) (Table 5). The SOC stock stored in protected areas
(conservation units and indigenous areas) is about 22.2 PgC, re-
presenting approximately 31% of the total SOC stock of the entire
Brazilian territory.

7
L.C. Gomes et al. Geoderma xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 3
Selected variables using the Recursive Feature Elimination-Random Forests method to model the distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks at the different soil
depths.
Soil depth (cm)

0–5 5–15 15–30 30–60 60–100

Soil class Soil class Soil class SAMT Soil class

NDVI Precipitation 9 SAMT Precipitation 12 SAMT
GPP GPP Valley depth Soil class Precipitation 2
Bio 12 SAMT Precipitation 9 Slope height Precipitation 9
Valley depth Bio 12 Precipitation 10 GPP Precipitation 12
Precipitation 7 Precipitation 1 GPP Normalized height Precipitation 8
Precipitation 9 Normalized height Slope height Valley depth Slope height
Precipitation 3 Valley depth Precipitation 01 Precipitation 4 Valley depth
SAMT NDVI NDVI Precipitation 1 GPP
Bio 5 Precipitation 8 Precipitation 03 NDVI NDVI
Elevation Bio 5 Standardized height Precipitation 9 Normalized height
Precipitation 10 Slope height Bio 12 Precipitation 11 Terrain surface convexity
Slope height slope Precipitation 2 Bio 12
Standardized height Precipitation 10 Normalized height Bio 7
Biome Elevation Slope Standardized height

Fig. 4. Performance of the models Cubist, General Linear Model (GLM), Random Forests (RF) and Support Vector Machines (SVM) on the prediction of the soil
organic carbon (SOC) stocks, assessed by the R-squared (R2), root mean squared error (RMSE), and mean absolute error (MAE) of the validation dataset (Holdout).

4. Discussion
4.1. Model performance and uncertainty
The methodological framework optimized the prediction of SOC
stocks by applying DSM methodologies for selecting variables and
models, as well as for assessing prediction uncertainty. In general, the
RFE did not improve the model performance, as found by Stevens et al.
(2013), but selecting the best subset of variables for each soil depth,
from a total of 74 to 10–20 variables, considerably decreased the pro-
cessing time. This is particularly interesting for large territorial areas,
such as Brazil. The framework enables choosing the best model based
on the performance given with the optimal subset of covariates with
highest confidence, once the variables were selected a priori by the

8
L.C. Gomes et al.
Fig. 5. The relative importance of covariates, given by the decrease in mean accuracy (IncMSE), for soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks prediction per soil depths
intervals (cm) using the RFE-Random Forests model.
respective model using RFE. The framework also provides a measure-
ment of the prediction uncertainty, which is one of the gains when
applying DSM to model SOC stocks. Therefore, this framework enables
production of maps with known accuracy and is indicated for mapping
SOC stocks in large areas.
Our results confirm that Random Forests model is a powerful ma-
chine learning algorithm for predictions, as reported by Nawar and
Mouazen (2017). The prediction statistics (Table 4) show no overfitting,
as the R2 of the training and validation sets are similar for all five
depths. The RMSE and MAE corroborate this assertion, presenting small
differences in training and validation. The R2 variation was less than
4% when predicting SOC stocks across all depth increments in the
training set, which indicates low variation in prediction. For the
9
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validation, the CV showed higher variation than the training set, but the
values were lower than 11% for all depths. The higher variation in the
validation sets indicates an increase in the prediction uncertainty,
which may be related to the smaller number of samples used for the
validation compared to the training or the process of internal data se-
lection of the Random Forests model.
As pointed out by Malone et al. (2018), a major source of error in
DSM is the sparseness of soil data, and in this regard, we attribute the
low representativeness of soil samples in the area of Amazon and Cer-
rado biomes, as one possible reason for the high uncertainty of the
prediction in these regions (Fig. 6). In addition to this, the use of legacy
data implies unknown uncertainties due to measurement, positional
location and temporal changes of the soil information.
L.C. Gomes et al. Geoderma xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

(caption on next page)

10
L.C. Gomes et al. Geoderma xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Fig. 6. Total SOC stocks predicted for the soil depth at 0–5 (a), 5–15 (b), 15–30 (c), 30–60 (d) and 60–100 cm (e) soil depth, from the 100 runs model Predicted
Interval of the Lower 5% (a.1–e.1), Mean (a.2–e.2), and Upper 95% (a.3–e.3) intervals and, the Coefficient of Variation-CV (a.4–e.4) with respective percentage of
area per class range in brackets, of the 100 predictions with Random Forests model.

Table 4 precipitation) was more important for SOC accumulation, suggesting a

Performance of the Random Forests model to predict the spatial distribution of cumulative long-term effect of climate variables on the accumulation of
SOC stocks with the mean values from 100 predictions. SOC stocks.
Soil depth R2 CV (%) RMSE CV (%) MAE CV (%) n The Amazon biome showed the highest SOC stocks, whereas the
(cm) R2 (kg m−2) RMSE (kg m−2) MAE Pantanal and Caatinga showed the lowest (Fig. 7), but absolute values
of SOC stock only serve as a general measure of the magnitude of the
5-fold cross-validation
carbon stored in each region. Much more relevant understanding of
0–5 0.22 3.4 0.56 0.6 0.41 0.6 6583
5–15 0.26 2.6 0.99 0.7 0.71 0.5 6574 SOC accumulation is attained by analysing the SOC density. In terms of
15–30 0.31 2.1 1.19 0.7 0.84 0.6 6464 the SOC accumulation per unit area, there is a clear trend of higher
30–60 0.32 2.6 1.31 0.9 0.95 0.9 5618 values in milder climates of the mountainous regions of southeastern
60–100 0.17 2.9 1.49 0.9 1.08 0.8 4923 and southern Brazil, where moderate, prominent or humic A horizons
Validation (Holdout)
0–5 0.23 10.3 0.56 2.4 0.40 2.07 1644
coexist, suggesting a long-term pattern of climatically driven SOC sta-
5–15 0.26 8.0 0.66 2.8 0.70 1.8 1640 bilization. These values are nearly twice the values of the Caatinga
15–30 0.32 6.9 1.19 2.6 0.84 1.7 1615 biome (Fig. 7), where erosion is widespread, and weak (ochric) A
30–60 0.33 7.3 1.33 3.1 0.94 2.2 1404 horizons predominate, with little accumulation of SOC. The NW region
60–100 0.17 8.8 1.48 3.3 1.08 2.6 1228
of the Amazon biome also revealed a great SOC stocks density, mostly
Mean absolute error (MAE), root mean squared error (RMSE), number of associated with mobile, unprotected SOC forms that are highly unstable
samples (n). and subject to alluvial losses in spodic horizons, as shown by Schaefer
et al. (2008).
4.2. Soil carbon stocks in Brazil The lowest potential of carbon accumulation in soils occurs along a
NE/SW dry axis, with minimum values in both extremes (Pantanal and
The estimates of SOC stock to the 100 cm depth in previous studies Caatinga), where the climates are much drier and seasonal. In the
were mainly based on average SOC stocks by ecosystem types and soil Cerrado, due to the high altitude of the Central plateau, there is a
classes. Schroeder and Winjum (1995) estimated that Brazilian soils greater relative accumulation of carbon, but less than under Forest.
contain approximately 72 PgC in 0–100 cm depth, based on ecosystem Among the Forests, the highest values are those from the Atlantic
types (Zinke et al., 1986). Bernoux et al. (2002) estimated SOC stocks of Forest, since much a warmer Amazon climate leads to higher rates of
36.4 ± 3.4 PgC at a limited upper 0–30 cm soil depth, using soil and SOC mineralization, greatly reducing its potential for accumulation
vegetation data, and determining missing soil bulk density data by (Schaefer et al., 2008).
linear regression. Batjes (2005) estimated SOC stocks of 65.9–67.5 PgC Soil classes were key to predict the distribution of SOC stocks
for the whole territory using SOTER 1: 5 M. (Fig. 5) as they are associated with texture and structure, directly af-
In the present study, using machine learning algorithms, we found fecting SOC accumulation/stabilization processes (Harrison-Kirk et al.,
values of SOC stocks varying from 64.6 to 78 PgC with a mean value of 2013; Lenka and Lal, 2013). Most of the SOC stocks are stored in Fer-
71.3 PgC at 0–100 cm soil depth (Fig. 6), consistent with previous re- ralsols and Acrisols, the dominant soils throughout Brazil, regardless of
ports. Although total SOC stocks are in agreement with the literature, the SOC density. When analysing the SOC stocks density (kg m−2) we
our study highlights a very contrasting distribution pattern of SOC found that Histosols had the highest values (14.87 kg m−2), as ob-
stocks between biomes (Fig. 7a). viously expected for organic-rich soils, and semi-arid Luvisols with
The SOC stock for the Amazon biome (36.1 PgC) at 0–100 cm was lowest values (6.47 kg m−2). Histosols are found under very local
lower than previously published values (Batjes and Dijkshoorn, 1999; conditions of low temperature or low oxygen availability that prevent
Moraes et al., 1995), which estimated 47 and 46.5 PgC at 0–100 cm soil organic matter degradation. Luvisols are located in the hottest and
depth, respectively. These authors used the mean values of SOC and soil driest regions (Caatinga) under a semi-arid climate that favors strong
bulk density of each soil class to determine the SOC stocks. Cerri et al. losses by erosion and less organic matter inputs by vegetation.
(1999) estimated the SOC stocks of the Amazon in 23.4 PgC at 0–30 cm The SOC stocks modelled in this study are based on the legacy data
and 41 PgC up to 100 cm soil depth, using a soil map of the national from 1970 and 2005: since then, the agricultural area in Brazil greatly
database, and soil bulk density calculated by linear regression. increased. This means that the values for the first soil layers can be now
overestimated, especially in the Cerrado biome, where the intensive
agriculture increased in the last decades. However, the adoption of no-
4.3. Soil carbon stock distribution in Brazil
till in recent years may reverse this trend in Cerrado areas, increasing
SOC content (Bayer et al., 2006). Nevertheless, Brazil contains large
Soil organic carbon stocks are the result of the balance between
forested areas without anthropogenic interference and protected areas
inputs and outputs of carbon in soils; several factors affect this balance,
for nature conservation, for which the modelled SOC stocks in the first
according to environmental conditions (Davidson and Janssens, 2006)
layers may be more accurate.
and local characteristics, such as vegetation (Jobbágy and Jackson,
Brazil has the largest areas of tropical vegetation in the world and
2000) and topography (Tang et al., 2017). In our study, soil class, the
plays a global key role in the context of provision of ecosystem services,
sum of monthly mean temperature, precipitation and vegetation were
such as conservation of biodiversity (Barlow et al., 2016), climate
the most important covariates driving the distribution of SOC stocks in
regulation (Salazar et al., 2007) and carbon sequestration in vegetation
Brazil, with varying influences according to soil depth (Fig. 5). In the
biomass (Englund et al., 2017). Extensive areas of tropical forest in the
first layer (0–5 cm) vegetation characteristics (NDVI and GPP) largely
Amazon biome are protected by the Brazilian legislation (Fig. 1c),
influenced the SOC stock distribution, indicating the importance of
which contribute to maintaining the provision of ecosystem services.
vegetation as a driver of organic matter accumulation. In deeper layers,
Although protected areas are important to provision of ecosystem
the climate factor (sum of monthly mean temperature and

11
L.C. Gomes et al.
Fig. 7. Total SOC stocks in PgC (a) and cumulative SOC stocks (kg m−2) to different soil intervals (b) for the biomes Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Caatinga, Cerrado,
Pampa and Pantanal.
services, this study highlights an additional benefit showing that these
areas contain approximately 22.2 PgC at 0–100 cm soil depth, that are
supposedly protected from anthropogenic actions in the long-term. The
magnitude of SOC stocks in the Brazilian protected areas is nearly twice
the total combined SOC stock (11.8 PgC) within 100 cm soil depth es-
timated for the following countries: Bulgaria (0.31 PgC); Denmark
12
Geoderma xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
(0.37 PgC); Italy (0.99 PgC); Netherlands (0.30 PgC); Poland (1.75
PgC); Slovakia (0.12 PgC); in France (3.1 PgC); Great Britain (4.6 PgC);
and in Belgium (0.303 PgC) (Arrouays et al., 2001; Bradley et al., 2005;
Lettens et al., 2004; Panagos et al., 2013). This highlights the strategic
position of Brazil for global policies aiming to maintain SOC stored and
mitigate future climate changes and land use impacts.
L.C. Gomes et al. Geoderma xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 5 Appendix A. Supplementary data

Average of 100 runs prediction of soil organic carbon stocks in the top 100 cm
soil according to FAO soil groups. Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://
Soil class Soil class Area (km2) PgC kg m−2C doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2019.01.007.
(SiBCS) (IUSS -WRB)
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Acknowledgment
We thank the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and
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