Pedometrics
Encyclopedia
Pedometrics is the application of mathematical and statistical methods for the study of the distribution and genesis of soils
.
Pedometrics is a neologism derived from the Greek
roots pedos, soil and, metron, measurement. Measurement in this case is restricted to mathematical and statistical methods as it relates to pedology
, the branch of soil science
that studies soil in its natural setting.
Pedometrics addresses soil related problems when there is uncertainty
due to deterministic or stochastic
variation, vagueness and lack of knowledge of soil properties and processes. It relies upon mathematical, statistical, and numerical methods and includes numerical approaches to classification to deal with a supposed deterministic variation. Simulation
models incorporate uncertainty by adopting chaos theory
, statistical distribution, or fuzzy logic
.
Pedometrics addresses pedology from the perspective of emerging scientific fields such as wavelets analysis, fuzzy set
theory and data mining
in soil data modelling applications. The advance of pedometrics is also linked to improvements in remote and close-range sensing.
Pedogenesis
Pedogenesis is the science and study of the processes that lead to the formation of soil ' and first explored by the Russian geologist Vasily Dokuchaev , the so called grandfather of soil science, who determined that soil formed over time as a consequence of...
.
Pedometrics is a neologism derived from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
roots pedos, soil and, metron, measurement. Measurement in this case is restricted to mathematical and statistical methods as it relates to pedology
Pedology (soil study)
Pedology is the study of soils in their natural environment. It is one of two main branches of soil science, the other being edaphology...
, the branch of soil science
Soil science
Soil science is the study of soil as a natural resource on the surface of the earth including soil formation, classification and mapping; physical, chemical, biological, and fertility properties of soils; and these properties in relation to the use and management of soils.Sometimes terms which...
that studies soil in its natural setting.
Pedometrics addresses soil related problems when there is uncertainty
Uncertainty
Uncertainty is a term used in subtly different ways in a number of fields, including physics, philosophy, statistics, economics, finance, insurance, psychology, sociology, engineering, and information science...
due to deterministic or stochastic
Stochastic
Stochastic refers to systems whose behaviour is intrinsically non-deterministic. A stochastic process is one whose behavior is non-deterministic, in that a system's subsequent state is determined both by the process's predictable actions and by a random element. However, according to M. Kac and E...
variation, vagueness and lack of knowledge of soil properties and processes. It relies upon mathematical, statistical, and numerical methods and includes numerical approaches to classification to deal with a supposed deterministic variation. Simulation
Simulation
Simulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....
models incorporate uncertainty by adopting chaos theory
Chaos theory
Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...
, statistical distribution, or fuzzy logic
Fuzzy logic
Fuzzy logic is a form of many-valued logic; it deals with reasoning that is approximate rather than fixed and exact. In contrast with traditional logic theory, where binary sets have two-valued logic: true or false, fuzzy logic variables may have a truth value that ranges in degree between 0 and 1...
.
Pedometrics addresses pedology from the perspective of emerging scientific fields such as wavelets analysis, fuzzy set
Fuzzy set
Fuzzy sets are sets whose elements have degrees of membership. Fuzzy sets were introduced simultaneously by Lotfi A. Zadeh and Dieter Klaua in 1965 as an extension of the classical notion of set. In classical set theory, the membership of elements in a set is assessed in binary terms according to...
theory and data mining
Data mining
Data mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...
in soil data modelling applications. The advance of pedometrics is also linked to improvements in remote and close-range sensing.