Characterization of Soil Types and Subtypes in N-Dimensional Space of Multitemporal (Empirical) Soil Line

Abstract

A classical soil line (SL) in the RED–NIR spectral space is specified by two coefficients “a” and “b.” In this form, it does not characterize soil types and subtypes. A multitemporal soil line (MSL) represents the major axis of the ellipse describing all possible pairs of RED–NIR values characterizing a bare soil surface for a given pixel of remote sensing images. The MSL in the RED–NIR spectral space is specified by several (N) coefficients. The resulting N-dimensional space of MSL coefficients makes it possible to give unique characteristics for each type and subtype of soils in the following zonal soil sequence: soddy-podzolic soils, light gray forest soils, gray forest soils, dark gray forest soils, podzolized chernozems, and leached chernozems. The analysis of variance allows us to state that the soils of this sequence significantly differ from one another in the characteristic sets of MSL coefficients. In other words, these coefficients characterize soil types and subtypes, and the MSL can be considered an empirical soil line (ESL) of the given type and subtype of soil. A classical SL is an integrity of ESLs of different soils within the given scene of remote sensing data.