Spectroscopy

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is an important and reliable indicator of soil quality. In this study, soil spectra were characterized and analysed to predict the spatial soil organic carbon (SOC) content using multivariate predictive modeling technique-artificial neural network (ANN). EO1-Hyperion (400- 2500 nm) hyperspectral image, field and laboratory scale data sets (350- 2500 nm) were generated which consisted of laboratory estimated SOC content of collected soil samples (depen-dent variable) and their corresponding reflectance data of SOC sensitive spectral bands (predic-tive variables). For each data set, ANN predictive models were developed and all three datasets (image-scale, field-scale and lab-scale) revealed significant network performances for training, testing and validation indicating a good network generalization for SOC content. ANN based analy-sis showed high prediction of SOC content at image (R2 = 0.93, and RPD = 3.19), field (R2 = 0.92 and RPD = 3.17), and lab scale (R2 = 0.95 and RPD = 3.16). Validation results of ANN indicated that pre-dictive models performed well (R2 = 0.90) with RMSE 0.070. The result showed that ANN methods had a great potential for estimating and mapping spatial SOC content. The study concluded that ANN model was potential tools in predicting SOC distribution in agricultural field using hyper