Advances in remote/aerial sensing techniques for monitoring soil health

Publication date: 21/02/2023
Extent: 40 pages

Contributions by: Jeffrey P. Walker and Nan Ye, Monash University, Australia; and Liujun Zhu, Monash University, Australia and Yangtze Institute for Conservation and Development, Hohai University, China

Chapter synopsis:

Remote sensing is a cost-effective method to monitor soil health. Compared with conventional monitoring station networks, it has improved spatial representativeness and no interference with farming activities. For the last few decades, microwave remote sensing has been tested on satellites for global soil moisture monitoring. A number of experimental and theoretical studies were conducted to further develop both active and passive microwave soil moisture remote sensing techniques at regional and farm scales. The recent development shows the potential of regular soil moisture remote sensing with a high resolution and high accuracy. In the future, P-band soil moisture remote sensing, deep learning, UAV techniques are expected to have a high sensitivity and high-resolution soil moisture at the farm scale.

DOI: 10.19103/AS.2022.0107.05