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Using Radar and Optical Data for Soil Salinity Modeling and Mapping in Central Iraq

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Environmental Remote Sensing and GIS in Iraq

Part of the book series: Springer Water ((SPWA))

Abstract

As one of the environmental calamities, soil salinization has become a key concern in agricultural management, especially, in irrigated areas in dryland systems. How to quantify and map soil salinity in space and time to provide relevant advices for decision-makers and land managers for their agricultural development has become a pressing issue. Based on our previous works, this study was aimed to develop rather simple and operational approaches for such quantification and mapping taking the Mussaib site in Central Iraq as an example. In conjunction with the field samples, ALOS (Advanced Land Observing Satellite) PALSAR (Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar) data and Landsat 5 TM (Thematic Mapper) imagery acquired at almost the same time were employed for this purpose. After derivation of different biophysical indicators from the TM images and removal of the impacts of vegetation water content (VWC) on the L-band radar backscattering coefficients, a multivariate linear regression (MLR) modeling was applied to establish the combined and radar-based soil salinity models. Results revealed that VWC removal procedure could significantly improve the correlation between the measured apparent soil salinity (ECa) and radar backscattering coefficients by 7.5–25.6%. The optical-radar combined models can reliably predict soil salinity with an accuracy of 77.0–83.7% (R2 = 0.770–0.837). Merely, further improvement in reducing the impacts of vegetation cover and soil moisture by radar data themselves is still recommended. In conclusion, the optical-radar combined approaches and models developed in this chapter shall be operational for soil salinity modeling and mapping; and radar-based approach has great potential for this purpose.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.icarda.org/iraq-salinity-project.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank AusAID (Australian Agency for International Development) for their funding in our previous works in Mesopotamia (ICARDA Project No: LWR/2009/034, 2010–2014) while the first author was with ICARDA, and East China University of Technology for their financial support to Dr. Weicheng Wu for his research on assessment of sustainable use of environmental resources (Grant No: DHTP2018001, 2018–2021). Our sincere gratitude will go to ESA (https://alos-palsar-ds.eo.esa.int) for their provision of ALOS PALSAR and Landsat 5 TM data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Digital Land and Resources, East China University of Technology, Nanchang, 330013, Jiangxi, China

    Weicheng Wu

  2. College of Agriculture, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq

    Ahmad S. Muhaimeed

  3. GIS Division, Ministry of Agriculture, Baghdad, Iraq

    Waleed M. Al-Shafie

  4. Department of Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Knowledge University, Erbil, 44001, Kurdistan Region, Iraq

    Ayad M. Fadhil Al-Quraishi

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  1. Weicheng Wu
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  2. Ahmad S. Muhaimeed
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  3. Waleed M. Al-Shafie
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  4. Ayad M. Fadhil Al-Quraishi
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Correspondence to Weicheng Wu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Engineering, Knowledge University, Erbil, Iraq

    Ayad M. Fadhil Al-Quraishi

  2. Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt

    Abdelazim M. Negm

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Wu, W., Muhaimeed, A.S., Al-Shafie, W.M., Al-Quraishi, A.M.F. (2020). Using Radar and Optical Data for Soil Salinity Modeling and Mapping in Central Iraq. In: Al-Quraishi, A., Negm, A. (eds) Environmental Remote Sensing and GIS in Iraq. Springer Water. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21344-2_2

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