Application of Multispectral Remote Sensing to Soil Survey Research in Indiana

Recent advances have been made in the technology of measuring radiance from the earth\u27s surface using multiple-wavelength airborne scanning spectrometers. Concurrently, advances were being made in the application of computer-implemented pattern recognition techniques to these multispectral data. Together these two tools have resulted in a capability for napping various earth surface features with extreme rapidity and varying degrees of accuracy. This study compared computer-implemented mappings based on spectral properties of bare soil surfaces with mapping units of interest to soil surveyors. Some soil types could be differentiated by their spectral properties. In other cases, soils with similar surface colors and textures could not be distinguished spectrally. The spectral maps seemed useful for delineating boundaries between soils in many cases