Soil nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are important elements for soil fertility management as well as vital nutrient elements for plant development. Understanding the geographical distribution features of soil nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium can offer a theoretical foundation for properly controlling the soil fertility of forest land in the Lin'an hickory plantation and boosting the hictory forest industry's sustainable growth. In this study, the main production area of hickory plantation Lin'an was taken as the study area, and the random forest (RF), ordinary kriging (OK), and shapley additive interpretation (SHAP) methods were used to analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of soil alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen (AN), available phosphorus (AP), and available potassium (AK) in hickory forest land in combination with environmental variables such as terrain factors, climate factors, soil factors, and remote sensing factors. According to the findings, the environmental covariates-based RF model outperformed the OK model in terms of accurately predicting the geographic distribution of AN, AP, and AK content. And theR² of AN, AP, and AK in the RF model were 0.68, 0.60, and 0.64, respectively, as well as the root mean square error (RMSE) of 20.005, 10.287, and 22.426, and the mean absolute error (MAE) of 15.425, 7.709, and 21.628. SHAP analysis of the RF model showed that the content distribution of AN and AK was mainly affected by soil organic matter (SOM), while SOM was positively correlated with AN and AK. AP was mainly affected by pH, followed by hue index. AP was negatively correlated with pH and hue index, and AK and AP were affected by elevation and aspect at the same time. The spatial distribution trends of AN, AK, and AP predicted by the two models were generally similar, but the spatial patterns of different available nutrients were different. The high value of AN was mainly distributed in the eastern part of the study area. The region with high AP value was mainly distributed in the west of the study area, but the dispersion was high. The high value of AK was mainly distributed in the middle of the study area. In general, based on the RF model, the spatial distribution characteristics of AN, AP and AK content in hickory forest can be simulated with high accuracy, and the corresponding management scheme can be put forward according to the relationship between AN, AP, AK, and main environmental covariates. It is proposed that lime can be applied to the areas with low AP content to alleviate soil acidification, and phosphate fertilizer can be supplemented at the same time, and nitrogen fertilizer application can be reasonably reduced in the areas with high AN content, potassium fertilizer should be applied reasonably in areas with low AK content. For the areas with high altitude and more rainfall on the windward slope, efficient soil and water conservation vegetation can be constructed under the forest to reduce soil erosion, and organic fertilizer can be applied to the forest land to improve soil physical and chemical properties and increase soil nutrient content.