mpspline Documentation

Mass-preserving equal-area quadratic splines for harmonizing soil component profiles to standardized depth intervals.

mpspline is a Python implementation of mass-preserving spline functions for soil data depth harmonization, based on the mpspline2 R package by Lauren O’Brien.

Getting Started

User Guide

API Reference

Background

Key Features

  • Data-agnostic: Works with dictionaries, lists, or pandas DataFrames

  • Flexible input: Automatically recognizes common horizon depth column names

  • Mass-preserving: Maintains average property values across depth intervals

  • Bulk processing: Efficiently handle hundreds or thousands of profiles

  • Parallel processing: Optional multiprocessing for large datasets

  • Customizable: Adjust smoothing parameters, depth intervals, and constraints

  • Well-documented: Full docstrings and extensive type hints

Basic Usage

from mpspline import mpspline

# Single profile (dict) or multiple profiles (list of dicts)
result = mpspline({
    'horizons': [
        {'hzname': 'A', 'upper': 0, 'lower': 20, 'clay': 24.5},
        {'hzname': 'B', 'upper': 20, 'lower': 50, 'clay': 35.2},
    ]
})

print(result)  # Returns harmonized values at standard depths

References

Bishop, T.F.A., McBratney, A.B., & Laslett, G.M. (1999). Modelling soil attribute depth functions with equal-area quadratic smoothing splines. Geoderma, 89(3-4), 185-208. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-7061(99)00003-8

Malone, B.P., McBratney, A.B., & Minasny, B. (2009). Mapping continuous depth functions of soil carbon storage and available water capacity. Geoderma, 154(3-4), 138-152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2009.10.007

License

GPL 3.0 - See LICENSE for details.