In this study, an intelligent monitoring platform is established for continuous quantification of soil, vegetation, and atmosphere parameters (e.g. soil suction, rainfall, tree canopy, air temperature, and wind speed) to provide an efficient dataset for modeling suction response through machine learning. Two characteristic parameters representing suction response during wetting processes, i.e. response time and mean reduction rate of suction, are formulated through multi-gene genetic programming (MGGP) using eight selected influential parameters including depth, initial soil suction, vegetation- and atmosphere-related parameters. An error standard–based performance evaluation indicated that MGGP has appreciable potential for model development when working with even fewer than 100 data. Global sensitivity analysis revealed the importance of tree canopy and mean wind speed to estimation of response time and indicated that initial soil suction and rainfall amount have an important effect on the estimated suction reduction rate during a wetting process. Uncertainty assessment indicated that the two MGGP models describing suction response after rainfall are reliable and robust under uncertain conditions. In-depth analysis of spatial variations in suction response validated the robustness of two obtained MGGP models in prediction of suction variation characteristics under natural conditions.