Spatially Explicit Estimation of Clay and Organic Carbon Content in Agricultural Soils Using Multi-Annual Imaging Spectroscopy Data

• Published in: Applied and Environmental Soil Science 2012, Vol.2012 (2012), p.619-641
• Main Authors: Gerighausen, Heike, Menz, Gunter, Kaufmann, Hermann
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agricultural land; Carbon content; Invisibility; Sensors; Soils; Spectrum analysis
• ISSN: 1687-7667; 1687-7675
• DOI: 10.1155/2012/868090

Information on soil clay and organic carbon content on a regional to local scale is vital for a multitude of reasons such as soil conservation, precision agriculture, and possibly also in the context of global environmental change. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of multi-annual hyperspectral images acquired with the HyMap sensor (450–2480 nm) during three flight campaigns in 2004, 2005, and 2008 for the prediction of clay and organic carbon content on croplands by means of partial least squares regression (PLSR). Supplementary, laboratory reflectance measurements were acquired under standardized conditions. Laboratory spectroscopy yielded prediction errors between 19.48 and 35.55 g kg−1 for clay and 1.92 and 2.46 g kg−1 for organic carbon. Estimation errors with HyMap image spectra ranged from 15.99 to 23.39 g kg−1 for clay and 1.61 to 2.13 g kg−1 for organic carbon. A comparison of parameter predictions from different years confirmed the predictive ability of the models. BRDF effects increased model errors in the overlap of neighboring flight strips up to 3 times, but an appropriated preprocessing method can mitigate these negative influences. Using multi-annual image data, soil parameter maps could be successively complemented. They are exemplarily shown providing field specific information on prediction accuracy and image data source.