Abstract
Surface samples (Ap horizon) of twenty one soils widely differing in their physical appearance of colour were collected from different parts of India. Air-dried soils, passed through 2 mm sieve, were packed in black round trays for reflectance measurements. Soil colour of air-dry soils was designated using Munsell colour charts. Spectral reflectance patterns were obtained by a portable spectroradiometer using sunlight as the illuminant. For each sample, the XYZ tristimulus values; x,y chromaticity coordinates were obtained from reflectance patterns using the CIE standard methods. Munsell. notations were also converted to tristimulus and chromaticity coordinates using published tables of Wyszecki and Stiles (1982). The RGB colour coordinates obtained from both the systems were compared. The RGB values from spectral data were well correlated with reflectance in TM bands, while those from Munsell notation were correlated to a lesser extent. The tristimulus values were used to designate each soil with specific set of values to locate them in Universal Colour Space.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bhadra S K and Bhavanarayana M (1993). A study on the Effect of Soil Moisture on Spectral Reflectance Characteristics of Soils. Proc. Nat. Symp. “Remote Sensing Application for Resource Management”, Guwahati, India, Nov. 25–27, 1993, pp. 370–375.
CIE (1931). Commission Internationale de L ‘Eclairage. Proc. Eighth Session, Cambridge, England, 1931. Bureau Central d’ la CIE, Paris.
CIE (1978). Commission Internationale de L‘Eclairage. Recommendation on Uniform Colour Spaces, Colour Difference Equations and Psychometric colour terms. Supplement No. 2 to Publications CIE No. 15 (E-1.3.1) 1971/(TC-1.3) 1978, Bureau Central d’la CIE, Paris.
Da Costa L M (1980). Surface soil colour and reflectance as related to physico-chemical and mineralogical soil properties. Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Mississippi, Columbia.
Escadafal R and Pouget M (1986). Luminance spectrale et caracters de la surface des sols en region aride mediteranneenne. ITC, J. 86(l):19–23.
Escadafal R, Girard M C and Courault D (1989). Munsell soil colour and soil reflectance in the visible spectral bands of Landsat MSS and TM data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 27:37–46.
Fernandez R N and Schulze D G (1987). Calculation of soil colour from reflectance spectra. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J., 51:1277–1287.
Melville M D and Atkinson G (1985). Soil colour: its measurement and its designation in models of uniform colour space. J. Soil Sci., 36:495–512.
Munsell Colour Company (1975). Munsell Soil Colour Charts. Munsell Colour, Macbeth Division of Kollmorgen Corporation, Baltimore, MD.
Salmon-Drexler B C (1977). Reducing data to parameters with physical significance and signature extension. A review of Landsat capabilities. Proc. 11th Symp. Remote Sensing of Environment, Ann Arbor., pp. 1289–1299.
Shields J A, Paul E A, Arnand R J St. and Head W K (1968). Spectrophotometric measurement of soil colour and its relationship to moisture and organic matter. Can. J. Soil Sci., 48:271–280.
Soil Survey Staff (1951). Soil Survey Manual. U.S.D.A. Hand Book No. 18. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
Stoner E R (1979). Ph. D. Dissertation. Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.
Wyszecki G and Stiles W S (1982). Colour Science: Concept and Methods. Quantitative Data and Formulae. Wiley, New York. 950 p.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
About this article
Cite this article
Bhadra, S.K., Bhavanarayana, M. Estimation of soil colour through spectral reflectance characteristics. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 24, 1–10 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03023887
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03023887