Analyzing the effect of various soil properties on the estimation of soil specific surface area by different methods

• ANNs performed better than the other methods in the estimation of SSA
• Sand, clay, PL, LL, and FSI made the highest improvement in the estimation of SSA
• The greatest sensitivity coefficients were found for CEC, clay, LL and PL

Depending on the method used, measuring the specific surface area (SSA) can be expensive and time consuming and limited numbers of studies have been conducted to predict SSA from soil properties. In this study, 127 soil sample data were gathered from the available literature. The data set included SSA values and some of the soil physical and chemical index properties. At the first step, linear regression, non-linear regression, regression trees, artificial neural networks, and a multi-objective group method of data handling were used to develop seven pedotransfer functions (PTFs) for the purpose of finding the best method in predicting SSA. Results showed that the artificial neural networks performed better than the other methods used in the development and validation of PTFs. At the second step, to find the best set of SSA for predicting input variables and to investigate the importance of the input parameters, the artificial neural networks were further used and 25 models were developed. The results showed that the PTF, containing the input variables of sand%, clay%, plastic limit, liquid limit, and free swelling index performed better than the other PTFs. This can be attributed to the close relation between the free swelling index and Atterberg limits with the soil clay mineralogy, which is one of the most important factors controlling SSA. The sensitivity analysis showed that the greatest sensitivity coefficients were found for the cation exchange capacity, clay content, liquid limit, and plasticity index in different models. Overall, the artificial neural networks method was proper to predict SSA from soil variables.