Remote sensing approach to assess salt-affected soils in the north-east part of Tadla plain, Morocco

Recently, the remote sensing technologies have been used increasingly in various domains in order to explain or detect different phenomena in a rapid manner and covering large areas. This study aims to use Landsat 8 Oli imagery product to elaborate a map of soil salinity in the north-east part of Tadla plain, by implication of spectral reflectance and electrical conductivity (EC) measured in the laboratory. Based on salinity Index (SI), the Normalized Differential Salinity Index (NDSI), and Landsat bands, we carried out a statistical study via the JMP13 software to determine the most correlated bands with EC measured. The obtained results were very satisfactory with an R2 = 71.3% and root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.084. The elaborated map showed that the salinity is high near Oum Er Rbia River and the two cities of Beni-Mellal and Ouled Yaich, which is due to saline waters of Oum Er Rbia River and Béni-Moussa-East (Dir) groundwater used for irrigation. These results signify that the combination of remote sensing and laboratory EC measurements would be a suitable method for predicting soil salinity