Abstract
Salinity is the most important factor of consideration for the water management policies. The water availability from the rootzone reduced with the increase in the soil salinity due to the increase in the osmatic pressure. In Pakistan, salinity is the major threat to the agriculture land due to the tradition practices of irrigation and extensive utilization of the groundwater to meet the cope the irrigation water requirement of high intensity cropping system. The salinity impact is spatially variable on the canal commands area of the irrigation system. There is dire need to map the spatially distributed soil salinity with the high resolution. Landsat satellite imagery provides an opportunity to have 30m pixel information in seven spectral wavelength ranges. In this study, the soil salinity mapping was performed using pixel information on visible and infrared bands for 2015. These bands were also used to infer Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The raw digital numbers were converted into soil salinity information. The accuracy assessment was carried out using ground trothing information obtained using the error matrix method. Four major classes of non-saline, marginal saline, moderate saline and strongly, saline area was mapped. The overall accuracy of the classified map was found 83%. These maps can be helpful to delineate hot spots with severe problem of soil salinity in order to prepare reciprocate measures for improvement.
Highlights
Total irrigated area of Pakistan is estimated at 16.2 mha that lies in Indus Basin Irrigation System
The Lower Chenab Canal (LCC) is oldest irrigation scheme of the Indus basin lies in the Rechna doab
The accuracy of the soil salinity maps generated using GIS were validated using the error matrix method based on the ground truthing data collected through the field survey
Summary
Salinity and water logging are considered as severe environmental hazard to the irrigated agriculture especially in arid and semiarid regions. There is no up to date spatial map of soil salinity available that can provide gridded information at the canal command area in the Indus basin at the high resolution. The spatial mapping of the soil salinity at high resolution requires the very high-resolution data that requires very heavy coast and intensive labour work requirement Remote sensing makes it possible to map the land use land cover, predication of crops yield, groundwater resources and actual evapotranspiration with the high resolution (Waqas et al, 2019; Fahad et al, 2019; Cheema et al, 2014; Awan et al, 2016; Awan et al, 2017; Liaqat et al, 2015). In this study a novel approach is proposed to spatially map soil salinity using the Landsat imagery and ground data. The maps produce will provide hot spots where soil salinity is more than permissible limits
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