Predicting the spatial distribution of soil mineral particles using OLI sensor in northwest of Iran.

Texture is one of the most important soil properties that knowledge of the spatial distribution is essential for land-use planning and other activities related to agriculture and environment protection. So, this study was performed to supply the soil texture spatial distribution using standardized spectral reflectance (ZPC1) index of Landsat 8 satellite images in the northwest of Iran. The soil sampling was performed using a random method in 145 points. Mineral soil particles including clay, silt, and sand were determined, and soil texture was calculated. In this study, Landsat 8 satellite images were used to interpolate the soil texture spatial distribution. In the first step, the principal component analysis (PCA) was obtained. Then, PCA1 was standardized using a z-score (ZPC1), and regression techniques were used to create proper relationships between ZPC1 and the primary soil particles. Then, spatial distribution of soil particles was used to create a spatially distributed map of the soil textural classes. The results showed that the standardization of the first component reduced the standard deviation of PCA1 from 23.6 to 10.8. The results of comparing ZPC1 with soil mineral components showed that with increasing the amounts of soil clay and sand, the ZPC1 value decreases and increases, respectively. The results showed that the ranges of the spatial distribution of clay and sand were similar to the laboratory-measured amounts. The results of texture class prediction using the soil texture triangle showed that the amount of similarity between the measured and predicted classes was 53.79%.