Remote Sensing of Biological Soil Crusts at Different Scales

Abstract

The ability of remote sensing to detect and map the distribution of biological soil crusts offers the opportunity to extend site-specific ecological studies of crusts to a regional scale, thus reducing the time and costs associated with ground surveys. However, despite the global extent of soil crusts and the expanding interest in their ecological roles, there have been relatively few studies published on the use of remote sensing to detect and map their distributions. (Wessels and Van Vuuren (1986)) were the first to use satellite imagery to detect and map biological soil crusts. Their study of the Namib Desert of SW Africa used Landsat TM to discriminate lichen-covered areas from bare ground and vegetated surfaces. Subsequently, only a relatively small number of publications have either presented the spectral properties of biological soil crusts or applied remote sensing to map them (Clark et al. 1993a, b, c; Kokaly et al. 1994; O’Neill 1994; Karnieli and Tsoar 1995; Karnieli and Sarafis 1996; Karnieli et al. 1996, 1999; Tsoar and Karnieli 1996; Tromp and Steenis 1996; Karnieli 1997).