Research Projects

Soil hydraulic properties (SHPs) are crucial for understanding soil water movement and regime in agricultural fields. Direct estimations of SHPs are expensive, time-consuming, and destructive, making pedotransfer functions (PTFs) the primary method. However, PTFs are often unavailable at requisite spatial resolution or have large measurement uncertainty, which can hinder reliable estimations. Non-invasive, time-saving remote sensing approaches can achieve SHP estimation at various scales. Spectroscopy-based approaches can estimate multiple soil properties from a single set of spectral data. To date, fast and nondestructive evaluation of SHPs for coastal soils in India through visible to mid-infrared hyperspectral remote sensing and deep learning models has not been done. The proposed proposal aims to quantify the hydraulic properties of Indian coastal soils using visible to mid-/thermal-infrared remote sensing. The project aims to develop quantification models for estimation of SHPs through conventional PTFs and using visible to mid-infrared remote sensing. This has significant implications for irrigation scheduling, drought monitoring, agricultural field management, and rapid characterization of coastal SHPs.