Applicability of Landsat tm images to detect soil salinity of coastal areas in Bangladesh

Abstract

Soil salinity is one of the most important controlling factors in agricultural production. For an agrarian country like Bangladesh, it is vital to map the saline affected area and keep track of changes. It would be very convenient if the conventional time consuming method of detection soil salinity could be replaced with the application of remote sensing indices. So this study aimed to evaluate the applicability of Landsat 5 TM images, both level 1 and 2 for detecting saline affected areas of Coastal Bangladesh. Seventeen indices were used and compared with the field salinity data collected from SRDI. The R2 values reveal no significant correlation between the aforementioned indices and soil data. So this study concluded that Landsat TM images cannot be used to detect soil salinity in Coastal Bangladesh.