Forecasting Multi-Step Soil Moisture with Three-Phase Hybrid Wavelet-Least Absolute Shrinkage Selection Operator-Long Short-Term Memory Network (moDWT-Lasso-LSTM) Model

To develop agricultural risk management strategies, the early identification of water deficits during the growing cycle is critical. This research proposes a deep learning hybrid approach for multi-step soil moisture forecasting in the Bundaberg region in Queensland, Australia, with predictions made for 1-day, 14-day, and 30-day, intervals. The model integrates Geospatial Interactive Online Visualization and Analysis Infrastructure (Giovanni) satellite data with ground observations. Due to the periodicity, transience, and trends in soil moisture of the top layer, time series datasets were complex. Hence, the Maximum Overlap Discrete Wavelet Transform (moDWT) method was adopted for data decomposition to identify the best correlated wavelet and scaling coefficients of the predictor variables with the target top layer moisture. The proposed 3-phase hybrid moDWT-Lasso-LSTM model used the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (Lasso) method for feature selection. Optimal hyperparameters were identified using the Hyperopt algorithm with deep learning LSTM method. This proposed model’s performances were compared with benchmarked machine learning (ML) models. In total, nine models were developed, including three standalone models (e.g., LSTM), three integrated feature selection models (e.g., Lasso-LSTM), and three hybrid models incorporating wavelet decomposition and feature selection (e.g., moDWT-Lasso-LSTM). Compared to alternative models, the hybrid deep moDWT-Lasso-LSTM produced the superior predictive model across statistical performance metrics. For example, at 1-day forecast, The moDWT-Lasso-LSTM model exhibits the highest accuracy with the highest (Formula presented.) and the lowest RMSE (Formula presented.), MAE (Formula presented.), and SMAPE (Formula presented.) %, outperforming other models. The moDWT-Lasso-DNN model follows closely, while the Lasso-ANN and Lasso-DNN models show lower accuracy with higher RMSE and MAE values. The ANN and DNN models have the lowest performance, with higher error metrics and lower R2 values compared to the deep learning models incorporating moDWT and Lasso techniques. This research emphasizes the utility of the advanced complementary ML model, such as the developed moDWT-Lasso-LSTM 3-phase hybrid model, as a robust data-driven tool for early forecasting of soil moisture.