Soil Salinity Evaluation using ASTER data in Golestan Province, West Region of Caspian Sea,Iran.

Accurate estimation of soil salinity in a regional scale is very important for agricultural water management, drought monitoring, and risk desertification assessment. This is more important and essential in the coastal area, where soil salinity increase is becoming the biggest barrier to sustainable development. So, right monitoring the soil salinity status is necessary for making land-use plan and management. This study attempts to develop a method for estimating soil salinity status at regional scale through assimilating satellite remote sensing data.
Remote sensing has been shown to be a particularly valuable tool for obtaining relevant data on soil salinity in the coastal area. In this study, ASTER images have been georefrenced in ER Mapper 6.4. Then image processing methods carried out on images; then, in order to determine of training classes, were collected soil samples and located by a GPS in field. In this research, using supervised classification on ASTER and soil sampling was produced soil salinity map of the area in ERDAS Imagine 8.7. Also, ratio color composite images of ASTER data are performed for detection of saline soil several units. So, four salinity classes were detected in the area.
Finally, the results have been loaded in Arc View 3.2a in order to salinity evaluation in the area. Produced soil salinity map can be used for many environmental plans and shows reasonable adaptation by real world.