GPR Diagnostics of Chernozem Humus Horizon Thickness

This work aimed to search for indicators of the thickness of the humus horizon of chernozem soils based on the data of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveying. The investigation was carried out on a test site located in Russia’s Tula oblast. The area is dominated by arable podzolized chernozems, including ones eroded to a varying extent. In parallel with GPR profiling in the field, soil was drilled to determine the lower boundary of the humus horizon. Based on the conjugate analysis of GPR profiling data and the field determination of the thickness of the humus horizon, a new indicator was proposed: the coefficient of asymmetry of the modal value of the peak of the spectral density of the first-period reflected GPR pulse obtained at a frequency of 100 MHz. The proposed indicator demonstrates a good statistical relationship with the thickness of the humus horizon of chernozem soils. For the test region, a regression model of this relationship was constructed with a determination coefficient of approximately 0.82. To calculate the thickness of the humus horizon (A+AB), it is suggested to use the lower boundary of the second period of the spectral density of the reflected signal, which correlates well with the actual data. The developed approach can be used to map the thickness of the humus horizon in the chernozem soils of the research region. Theoretically, this approach can be extended to soils of other regions.