Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy to Characterize Soil Properties
| Name | Title | |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Cristine Morgan | Project Leader | cmorgan@ag.tamu.edu |
| Travis Waiser | NRCS Soil Scientist | travis.waiser@tx.usda.gov |
| Dr. David Brown | Collaborator | david_brown@wsu.edu |
| Dr. David Weindorf | Collaborator | DWeindorf@agcenter.lsu.edu |
| Katrina Hutchison | MS Student | KHutchison@ag.tamu.edu |
Why are we interested in Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy?
Spatial heterogeneity of soil affects the quality and quantity of water in streams, reservoirs, and groundwater. The ability to characterize the spatial distribution of soil properties is paramount to understanding water movement, nutrient transport, and soil erosion on a landscape. Current spatial measurement techniques are limited in spatial resolution by time-consuming quantification of soil properties with soil coring. Information about small-scale horizontal variability is not feasible. Information about horizontal variability is inferred from landscape topography. Considering the limits of current characterization techniques, new methods to measure the soil profile at a high resolution (cm) and rapidly cover a landscape at a high horizontal resolution need to be developed.
If the capabilities of the optical sensor on the penetrometer could be expanded to measure percent clay, calcium carbonate, soil shrink swell potential and organic carbon using spectral reflectance measurements, then soil heterogeneity could be quantified more quickly
Higher spatial resolution would lead to improved capabilities in modeling and management of water on landscapes.
Publications:
Hutchison, K, and C.L.S. Morgan. 2008 Charac Terization of Soil-Shrink Swell Potential Using The Texas Vnir Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy Library. Undergraduate Thesis. TAMU. 
Ge, Y., J.A. Thomasson, C.L.S. Morgan, and S.W. Searcy. 2007. VNIR diffuse reflectance spectroscopy for agricultural soil property determination based on regression-kriging. Transactions of ASABE. 50(3): 1081-1092. - Ge, Y., C.L.S. Morgan, J.A. Thomasson, and T. Waiser. 2007. A New Perspective to Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy: A Wavelet Approach. Trans. ASAE. 50(1): 303 - 311.
- Wasier, T., C.L.S. Morgan, D.J. Brown, and C.T. Hallmark. 2007. In Situ Characterization of Soil Clay Content with Visible Near-Infrared Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy. Soil Science Society of America Journal. Accepted.
Presentations:
- Characterization of Soil Shrink-Swell Potential Using the Texas VNIR Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy Library Abstract
- A New Perspective to Visible Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy: a Wavelet Approach
- Measuring Soil Properties in situ using Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy
For more Information on this project contact: Dr. Cristine Morgan cmorgan@ag.tamu.edu