Using Sentinel 2A spectral-zone images for qualitative assessment of soils in the Northern Forest-Steppe of Ukraine

Abstract

The research described in this paper is aimed at developing a methodology for remote determination of arable soil quality in the form of a bonita score using high-resolution spectral images. To achieve this goal, the dependencies between the values of the soil bonitet score and the spectral characteristics of satellite images of land cover areas were established. The geospatial models of soil cover scoring were verified, the results of which show a fairly high degree of correlation between the results of traditional soil scoring and remote sensing (NDSI, r = 0.91), the error value of the soil cover score for individual agricultural production groups of soils ranges from 1 to 12 points. It is found that despite the traditionally established use of vegetation indices to determine the state of crops, their use to determine the level of soil fertility is no less informative. It has been shown that the paired use of NDVI and NDSI values allows for the construction of relevant equations for remote determination of soil fertility, where the first of them acts as an auxiliary (clarifying) index, and the second as an effective working index.