Algoritmo genético aplicado à determinação da melhor configuração e do menor tamanho amostral na análise da variabilidade espacial de atributos químicos do solo

Abstract

It is essential to determine a sampling design with a size that minimizes operating costs and maximizes the results quality throughout a trial setting that involves the study of spatial variability of chemical attributes on soil. Thus, this trial aimed at resizing a sample configuration with the least possible number of points for a commercial area composed of 102 points, regarding the information on spatial variability of soil chemical attributes to optimize the process. Initially, Monte Carlo simulations were carried out, assuming Gaussian, isotropic, and exponential model for semi-variance function and three initial sampling configurations: systematic, simple random and lattice plus close pairs. The Genetic Algorithm (GA) was used to obtain simulated data and chemical attributes of soil, in order to resize the optimized sample, considering two objective-functions. They are based on the efficiency of spatial prediction and geostatistical model estimation, which are respectively: maximization of global accuracy precision and minimization of functions based on Fisher information matrix. It was observed by the simulated data that for both objective functions, when the nugget effect and range varied, samplings usually showed the lowest values of objectivefunction, whose nugget effect was 0 and practical range was 0.9. And the increase in practical range has generated a slight reduction in the number of optimized sampling points for most cases. In relation to the soil chemical attributes, GA was efficient in reducing the sample size with both objective functions. Thus, sample size varied from 30 to 35 points in order to maximize global accuracy precision, which corresponded to 29.41% to 34.31% of the initial mesh, with a minimum spatial prediction similarity to the original configuration, equal to or greater than 85%. It is noteworthy that such data have reflected on the optimization process, which have similarity between the maps constructed with sample configurations: original and optimized. Nevertheless, the sample size of the optimized sample varied from 30 to 40 points to minimize the function based on Fisher information matrix, which corresponds to 29.41% and 39.22% of the original mesh, respectively. However, there was no similarity between the constructed maps when considering the initial and optimum sample configuration. For both objective functions, the soil chemical attributes showed mild spatial dependence for the original sample configuration. And, most of the attributes showed mild or strong spatial dependence for optimum sample configuration. Thus, the optimization process was efficient when applied to both simulated data and soil chemical attributes.