Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

USING LANDSAT 8 OLI DATA TO PREDICT AND MAPPING SOIL SALINITY FOR PART OF AN-NAJAF GOVERNORATE

Ebtihal T. AL-Khakani1, WatheqF.Al-Janabi, Sa’ad R. Yousif and Hamziya M. Al-Kazaali

Abstract

The most important problems of land degradation are represented by the soil salinization that concentrated particularly in arid and semi-arid environments due to high levels of temperature and evaporation. The study focuses on elucidation of the ability of Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) sensor data with its visible and infrared bands for detection and mapping of soil salinity (SS) according to salinity levels in dispersed locations of An-Najaf Governorate. Seven soil salinity indices (SSI) have been applied and assessed to detect soil salinity effectually. The multiple linear regression (MLR) has been applied to explore the correlation between various spectral indices and bands with ground measurements of electrical conductivity (ECm) for the sake of prediction of the soil salinity. Strong correlations have been found between the (SSIs) and (ECm). Thematic maps for soil salinity using GIS have been produced and acceptably evaluated.