SPOT5 imagery for soil salinity assessment in Iraq

Soil salinization is a form of topsoil degradation due to the formation of soluble salts at deleterious levels. This phenomenon can seriously compromise vegetation health and agricultural productivity, and represents a worldwide environmental problem. Remote sensing is a very useful tool for soil salinization monitoring and assessment. In this work we show some results of a study aimed to define a methodology for soil salinity assessment in Iraq based on SPOT 5 imagery. This methodology allows the identification of salinized soils primarily on bare soils. Subsequently some soil salinity assessment can be done on vegetated soils. On bare soil the identification of salt is based on spectral analysis, using the Minimum Noise Fraction transformation and several indexes found in literature. In case of densely vegetated soils the methodology for the discrimination of salinized soils has been integrated with the results obtained from the classification of vegetation coverage. © (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.