Developing Remote Sensing Based-Techniques for the Evaluation of Soil Infiltration Rate and Surface Roughness

Abstract

The objective of this one-year project was to show whether a significant correlation can be established between the decreasing infiltration rate of the soil, during simulated rainstorm, and a following increase in the reflectance of the crusting soil. The project was supposed to be conducted under laboratory conditions, using at least three types of soils from each country. The general goal of this work was to develop a method for measuring the soil infiltration rate in-situ, solely from the reflectance readings, using a spectrometer. Loss of rain and irrigation water from cultivated fields is a matter of great concern, especially in arid, semi-arid regions, e.g. much of Israel and vast area in US, where water is a limiting factor for crop production. A major reason for runoff of rain and overhead irrigation water is the structural crust that is generated over a bare soils surface during rainfall or overhead irrigation events and reduces its infiltration rate (IR), considerably. IR data is essential for predicting the amount of percolating rainwater and runoff. Available information on in situ infiltration rate and crust strength is necessary for the farmers to consider: when it is necessary to cultivate for breaking the soil crust, crust strength and seedlings emergence, precision farming, etc. To date, soil IR is measured in the laboratory and in small-scale field plots, using rainfall simulators. This method is tedious and consumes considerable resources. Therefore, an available, non-destructive-in situ methods for soil IR and soil crusting levels evaluations, are essential for the verification of infiltration and runoff models and the evaluation of the amount of available water in the soil. In this research, soil samples from the US and Israel were subjected to simulated rainstorms of increasing levels of cumulative energies, during which IR (crusting levels) were measured. The soils from the US were studied simultaneously in the US and in Israel in order to compare the effect of the methodology on the results. The soil surface reflectance was remotely measured, using laboratory and portable spectrometers in the VIS-NIR and SWIR spectral region (0.4-2.5mm). A correlation coefficient spectra in which the wavelength, consisting of the higher correlation, was selected to hold the highest linear correlation between the spectroscopy and the infiltration rate. There does not appear to be a single wavelength that will be best for all soils. The results with the six soils in both countries indeed showed that there is a significant correlation between the infiltration rate of crusted soils and their reflectance values. Regarding the wavelength with the highest correlation for each soil, it is likely that either a combined analysis with more then one wavelength or several "best" wavelengths will be found that will provide useful data on soil surface condition and infiltration rate. The product of this work will serve as a model for predicting infiltration rate and crusting levels solely from the reflectance readings. Developing the aforementioned methodologies will allow increased utilization of rain and irrigation water, reduced runoff, floods and soil erosion hazards, reduced seedlings emergence problems and increased plants stand and yields.