Soil, is a key component of the Critical Zone, and is the foundation of land-based life. It plays a crucial role in how humans interact with and manage the environment. To protect and better understand this resource, sensors are increasingly employed to characterize and monitor their physical and chemical properties. Technological advances in sensing technology and data interpretation have led to the development of new approaches to understand a variety of soil-based ecosystem services because they allow for the supplementation of labor-intensive sampling techniques with high-resolution data. Moreover, they are becoming increasingly affordable, accessible, and easy to use as ground-based or airborne instruments. As soil sensors are adopted to preserve and manage soil condition, as well as optimize soil capability for agricultural, archaeological, and environmental purposes, their value will only continue to grow.
Driven by technological advances in sensor development, the use of instruments which can measure different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum has boomed over the past decade. Information collected with these soil sensing instruments supports soil resource management and helps to understand soil processes, because they allow for the direct investigation of the subsurface, while offering the potential to monitor associated dynamic processes. Specifically, sensing methods, such as gamma radiometric techniques, ground-penetrating radar, and electromagnetic induction, are continually being optimized for soil applications and progressively deployed through unmanned and airborne vehicles. Multi-band cameras remain the most common type of airborne deployed sensor, providing high-resolution insight into vegetation and surface processes, particularly by allowing for efficient time-series creation. Visible near-infrared (vis-NIR) spectroscopy, its lab-based counterpart, is increasingly seen as an effective alternative for chemical analysis. Further, in-situ applications using portable and mobile vis-NIR sensors for rapid soil observations are advancing and efforts are being put forward in designing multi-sensory platforms for providing on-the-go comprehensive information on soil inventory and status.
As research on electromagnetic soil sensing is often fragmented across various scientific disciplines and applications such as agriculture, pollutant studies, and archaeological research, this research topic aims to bring together the latest cutting-edge and breakthrough research, and identify key perspectives in the field.
In this research topic, we invite contributions on advanced electromagnetic soil exploration. These contributions can be in the form of original research presentations or overview review papers. Topically, we aim to bring together articles that revolve around:
- advances in hardware development for ground-based and airborne electromagnetic soil sensing;
- modeling procedures aimed at resolving the distribution and variation of soil properties in the shallow subsurface;
- advancing interpretative frameworks for relating electromagnetic properties to natural and anthropogenic subsurface targets;
- multi-scale and multi-sensor data analysis;
- quantitative integration of invasive and non-invasive soil information.
Soil, is a key component of the Critical Zone, and is the foundation of land-based life. It plays a crucial role in how humans interact with and manage the environment. To protect and better understand this resource, sensors are increasingly employed to characterize and monitor their physical and chemical properties. Technological advances in sensing technology and data interpretation have led to the development of new approaches to understand a variety of soil-based ecosystem services because they allow for the supplementation of labor-intensive sampling techniques with high-resolution data. Moreover, they are becoming increasingly affordable, accessible, and easy to use as ground-based or airborne instruments. As soil sensors are adopted to preserve and manage soil condition, as well as optimize soil capability for agricultural, archaeological, and environmental purposes, their value will only continue to grow.
Driven by technological advances in sensor development, the use of instruments which can measure different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum has boomed over the past decade. Information collected with these soil sensing instruments supports soil resource management and helps to understand soil processes, because they allow for the direct investigation of the subsurface, while offering the potential to monitor associated dynamic processes. Specifically, sensing methods, such as gamma radiometric techniques, ground-penetrating radar, and electromagnetic induction, are continually being optimized for soil applications and progressively deployed through unmanned and airborne vehicles. Multi-band cameras remain the most common type of airborne deployed sensor, providing high-resolution insight into vegetation and surface processes, particularly by allowing for efficient time-series creation. Visible near-infrared (vis-NIR) spectroscopy, its lab-based counterpart, is increasingly seen as an effective alternative for chemical analysis. Further, in-situ applications using portable and mobile vis-NIR sensors for rapid soil observations are advancing and efforts are being put forward in designing multi-sensory platforms for providing on-the-go comprehensive information on soil inventory and status.
As research on electromagnetic soil sensing is often fragmented across various scientific disciplines and applications such as agriculture, pollutant studies, and archaeological research, this research topic aims to bring together the latest cutting-edge and breakthrough research, and identify key perspectives in the field.
In this research topic, we invite contributions on advanced electromagnetic soil exploration. These contributions can be in the form of original research presentations or overview review papers. Topically, we aim to bring together articles that revolve around:
- advances in hardware development for ground-based and airborne electromagnetic soil sensing;
- modeling procedures aimed at resolving the distribution and variation of soil properties in the shallow subsurface;
- advancing interpretative frameworks for relating electromagnetic properties to natural and anthropogenic subsurface targets;
- multi-scale and multi-sensor data analysis;
- quantitative integration of invasive and non-invasive soil information.
