Remote Sensing of Soils

Dr. S. Dharumarajan, Senior scientist in ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Bangalore, India. He received his PhD degree from Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi and Post Doc from The University of Sydney, Australia. He has 12 years of experience and expertise in the field of land resource inventorisation, land degradation assessment and digital soil resource mapping. He has handled various research projects financed by ICAR, French Natural Research agency, Ministry of Environment and Forest, Climate Change, Dept. of Space, Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission and World Bank in various capacities. He has published more than 50 research papers in peer reviewed national and international journals. He has been awarded Endeavour Research fellowship – 2016, ISSLUP young scientist award and ICAR-NBSS&LUP foundation day awards. Presently his research is focused on operationalisation of digital soil mapping products and integration of soil data for the wider environmental/earth modeling. Dr. Kaliraj Seenipandi is a scientist at the Central Geomatics Laboratory, NationalCentre for Earth Science Studies, Thiruvananthapuram. He received his MSc in remotesensing and geoinformation technology with a first from Madurai Kamaraj University,Madurai, and his MTech in geomatics from the Indian Institute of Surveying andMapping, Survey of India, Hyderabad. He was awarded the DST-INSPIRE Fellowship(both JRF and SRF) for his PhD in remote sensingegeotechnology from the Centre forGeoTechnology, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India.He has specialized in remote sensing, geoinformatics, and GIS modeling of earth andenvironmental processes. He has published over 30 research papers in the earth andenvironment fields and more than 25 proceedings in national and international conferences.He was awarded the Young Scientist of the Year 2016 award by theInternational Foundation for Environment and Ecology, Kolkata, in association with theConfederation of Indian Universities, New Delhi, and the Green Technologist of the Year2017 award by the Scientific and Environmental Research Institute, New Delhi, in associationwith the Indian Institute of Ecology and Environment, New Delhi. His researchinterests are in the fields of remote sensing, geoinformatics, GIS modeling, earth andenvironmental dynamics, coastal vulnerability assessment, and natural resource monitoringand management. Dr. Kabindra Adhikari is a soil scientist at the USDA-ARS, Grassland, Soil and Water Research Laboratory in Texas, United States. He received his PhD from the Aarhus University, Denmark, and MSc from the Ghent University, Belgium. He has an extensive soil survey experience from around the world and has played important roles in international meetings in digital soil mapping and pedometrics. His research interests include digital soil mapping, precision agriculture, and soil–landscape modeling. Dr. Lalitha Manickam, Scientist in ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Bangalore, India. She received her PhD degree in Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India. She was awarded IPI JRF for MSc program and DCSCMS-SRF award (Remote sensing for agricultural applications) for PhD from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. She has specialized in Soil survey, mapping, pedotransfer functions, modelling and soil spectral studies. She has published over 50 research papers in soil resource assessment, mapping, and land degradation, over 10 book chapters and more than 25 proceedings in national and international conferences. She has 3 best paper awards by Indian Institute of Soil Science, New Delhi, Indian Society of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Nagpur and Indian Society of Agricultural Information Technology in association with University of agricultural science, Dharwad, Karnataka. Her research interests are in the field of Soil survey and mapping, Land degradation assessment, Soil spectral studies and Land resource measurement and monitoring. Dr. Nirmal Kumar, Sr. Scientist (Agricultural Physics) with specialization in Remote Sensing and GIS applications in Natural Resource Management, graduated from the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Uttar Pradesh, India in 2005. He did his post graduation (2007) from Division of Agricultural Physics, Indian Institute of Agricultural Research, New Delhi and doctoral degree in Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry from Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur in 2018. He joined Agricultural Research Service as a scientist in 2009 at Division of Remote Sensing Applications, ICAR-National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning, Nagpur. He has twelve years of experience in research and training in the field of Remote Sensing, Geographical information System (GIS), Soil Survey and Pedology, and Land Evaluation. His current research interests are Web GIS, Soil Spectroscopy, and machine learning. He published more than 50 peer-reviewed research papers in international and national journals of repute and authored 9 books.

• Section 1: Remote sensing of soils1. Soil – interface of earth, environment and atmosphere2. Soil formation and spatial distributions3. Soil compositions and physio-chemical properties4. Remote sensing of soils and parental materials5. Optical Remote Sensing: Platforms, Sensors and Products in soil studies6. Microwave and hyperspectral Remote sensing: Platforms, Sensors & Products7. Spectral characteristics of soils 8. GIS modelling and Digital Image processing for soil measurement 9. Remote sensing - open source data products and applications10. Recent developments of remote sensing in soil researchSection 2: Remote sensing & GIS for Soil resource mapping1. Remote sensing and GIS for soil and terrain mapping 2. Soil mapping using remote sensing indices, terrain attributes & LULC 3. Soil moisture estimation and monitoring 4. Soil fertility mapping, monitoring and assessment 5. Soil salinity assessment and mapping 6. Problematic soils mapping and assessment 7. Soil management zone mapping 8. Soil mapping for hydrological assessment and monitoring 9. Soil Loss Assessment10. Soil conservation and management Section 3: Digital soil mapping and soil inference system 1. Digital soil mapping – concepts, methods, and applications 2. Geostatistics and Multivariate Statistical Analysis for soil mapping 3. Machine Learning techniques in soil mapping, and model comparisons 4. Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence in soil resources monitoring and mapping5. Smart soil sampling, covariate selection and Uncertainty assessment in soil mapping 6. Soil Organic Carbon– assessment, monitoring, and mapping 7. Soil Carbon Sequestration Potential estimation and mapping 8. Integrating process-based models and digital soil mapping for modeling soil carbon and soil nutrient dynamics9. GIS based soil information system and database development10. Digital library and Decision support system11. Variable Rate Application in Precision agriculture 12. Soil functional mapping and precision conservation of landscapes 13. Digital Soil Mapping: Moving Towards Dynamic Soil Survey Section 4: Remote sensing of soils: Recent implications and future prospects 1. Soil moisture estimation: Multispectral, Hyperspectral, Passive and Active Remote sensing approaches 2. Soil Physical and Chemical Properties – spatiotemporal monitoring & Assessment 3. Soil Properties measurement using VIS-NIR Imaging Spectroscopy Data 4. Soil Properties measurement using MIR Spectroscopy5. Spectral library and Decision support system 6. Soil Total Carbon Stock estimation measurement and monitoring 7. Soil Salinity Modeling8. Soil health monitoring9. Soil Sensors and applications 10. AVRIS hyperspectral data applications 11. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) based Remote Sensing 12. Future of remote sensing application in soil resources monitoring Section 5: Remote sensing & GIS for Soil analysis – vulnerability mapping and assessment1. Soil erosion vulnerability mapping and assessment2. Land degradation and Desertification – modelling and vulnerability analysis3. Natural hazards zonation and mapping4. Big data analysis and Data Mining Techniques in soil degradation assessment5. Machine learning in land degradation assessment6. Heavy metals hazard assessment and monitoring7. Remote sensing of energy fluxes, potential evapotranspiration and land surface temperature8. Soil sediments and contaminations9. Climate change impacts and dynamics of soil properties10. Object and Rule-based decision support systems for soil hazards management