A Pedo-Informatic Approach for Universal Predictions of Complex Soil Environmental Processes.

Soils represent one of the most difficult and recalcitrant barriers to the ecologically sustainable acquisition of new materials within the DoD. Biogeochemical processes driving environmental risk are difficult enough to decipher on their own; however, the problem is further complicated when accounting for the geospatial and compositional heterogeneity of soil matrices. Here, we present a new theoretical approach for developing robust datasets to predict (universally) any complex soil biogeochemical interaction and process. We call it the Pedo-Informatic approach, designed to utilize the predominant yet untapped structure in the classical soil taxonomic systems to make highly accurate predictions of complex soil biogeochemical processes. Latent structure contained within the soil taxonomic systems can be accessed and quantified through extensive physical and chemical characterization of known soil types. Multivariate statistical dimension-reduction techniques allow for the exploration of the full characterization matrix, and cluster different soil taxonomies along principal axes as combined sets of variables. From this decomposition, linear regression functions can be generated to predict complex biogeochemical processes based on reduced model parameters associated with predetermined ranges of soil types. The implications of the approach expand far beyond contaminant descriptions but are expected to be useful for a large variety of difficult environmental challenges, including distinguishing degraded environments, improving indigenous material selections, and identifying particular environmental characteristics for reconnaissance operations. In this presentation, we describe U.S. Army-specific environmental problems and challenges that drove the eventual discovery and formulation of this new theory, demonstrating examples from BRAC sites, USACE dredging activities, heavy metal transformations in soils, and the soil environmental fate of conventional munition constituents.