Pedophysics: an open-source python package for soil geophysics

Abstract

This study introduces Pedophysics, an open-source Python package designed to facilitate solutions for users who work in the field of soil assessment using near-surface geophysical electromagnetic techniques. At the core of this software is the ability to translate geophysical data into specific soil properties (and vice-versa) using pedophysical models (PM). Pedophysical modelling techniques offer valuable insights into various realms including precision agriculture, soil health, resource prospecting, nutrient and land management, hydrogeology, and heritage conservation. In developing a tool for pedophysical modelling, some challenges emerged: selecting suitable PMs from the extensive literature, adapting these to specific conditions, and ensuring adequate data availability. While addressing these, we designed an automated workflow that implements robust PMs (selected after a throughout review), apply different modelling approaches based on soil characteristics and targeted properties, and employs pedotransfer functions and assumptions to integrate missing soil data into PMs. The capabilities of Pedophysics extend to handling complex scenarios such as fusing data from different instruments, incorporating continuous monitoring measurements, and soil calibration data. With these solutions, Pedophysics automates the process of deriving targeted soil and geophysical properties with state-of-art accuracy. Hereby, users can rely on Pedophysics to implement specific knowledge about pedophysical modeling. The software promotes global access to advanced soil geophysical solutions by being open-source and encouraging community contributions. Pedophysics is written in pure Python and has minimal dependencies. It can be easily installed from the Python Package Index (PyPI).