ARS | Publication request: DETECTING THE STRUCTURE AND COMPOSITION OF INDUCED SOIL SURFACE CHANGE USING BI-DIRECTIONAL SOIL SPECTRAL REFLECTANCE

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Proceedings/Symposium
Publication Acceptance Date: August 31, 2005
Publication Date: September 7, 2005
Citation: Chappell, A., Zobeck, T.M., Brunner, G. 2005. Detecting the structure and composition of induced soil surface change using bi-directional soil spectral reflectance[abstract]. Conference on Remote Sensing and Geoinformation Processing in the Assessment and Monitoring of Land Degradation and Desertification.

Technical Abstract: The surface susceptibility to erosion (erodibility) is an important component of soil erosion models. Many studies of wind erosion have shown that even relatively small changes in surface conditions can have a considerable effect on the temporal and spatial variability of dust emissions. One of the main difficulties in measuring erodibility is that it is controlled by a number of highly variable soil factors. Collection of these data is often limited in scale because in situ measurements are labour-intensive and very time-consuming. To improve wind erosion model predictions over several spatial and temporal scales simultaneously, there is a requirement for a non-invasive approach that can be used to rapidly assess changes in the composition and structure of a soil surface in time and space. Information on the spectral reflectance of a soil surface appears to meet these desirable requirements and it is controlled by properties that affect the soil erodibility.