Hyperspectral remote sensing for extraction of soil salinization in the northern region of Ningxia

Soil salinization affects negatively on agricultural productivity in the semiarid region of Ningxia. In this study, the performance of inversion model to determine soil salinization was assessed using some analysis and reflectance of wavelength. About 42 vegetation samples and 42 soil samples were collected for model extraction. Hyper-spectral data processing method was used to analyze spectral characteristics of different levels of salinization area vegetation. Spectral data were transformed in 16 different approaches, including root mean squares, logarithm, inversion logarithm, and first-order differentiation. After the transformation, the obtained soil and vegetation characteristics spectra correlate well with soil salt content, built soil index, and many vegetation indices. Nonlinear regression was employed to establish soil salinization remote sensing monitoring model. By comparing various spectral transformations, the first-order differential of soil spectral was the most sensitive to soil salinization degrees. The model of the current research was based on salinity index (SI) and improved soil-adjusted vegetation index (MSAVI). The correlation between simulated values and measured values was 0.758. Therefore, remote sensing monitoring derived from MSAVI–SI can greatly improve the dynamic and periodical monitoring of soil salinity in the study area.