Estimation of soil copper content based on fractional-order derivative spectroscopy and spectral characteristic band selection.

Hyperspectral remote sensing is a rapid and nondestructive method to estimate the soil copper content. However, before establishing the spectral estimation model, it is crucial to preprocess the hyperspectral data to eliminate noise and highlight the spectral response characteristics of copper. The two commonly used spectral preprocessing approaches, i.e., the first- and second-order derivatives, may not provide sufficient information on the copper in the soil spectra. Therefore, this study investigates the potential of using the fractional-order derivative (FOD) of the spectra (FOD spectra) for estimating the soil copper content. A total of 170 soil samples were collected, and the soil reflectance spectra were measured outdoors using an ASD FieldSpec3 portable spectrometer. The soil copper content was obtained by chemical analysis in the laboratory. A quantitative estimation model of the soil copper content was established by combining the FOD spectra with different orders and using the partial least squares (PLS) method. The results revealed that the accuracy and prediction ability of the models using different orders of the FOD spectra varied significantly. The model using the 0.8-order FOD spectra performed the best, and the coefficient of determination (R2) and the ratio of the performance to deviation (RPD) of the validation set were 0.6416 and 1.63, respectively. The performance of the model using three characteristic bands (2365.5 nm and 2375.5 nm of the 0.9-order derivatives and 864.5 nm of the 1.1-order derivatives) provided significantly better performance than utilizing all wavelength bands from 400 to 2400 nm. This model provided the optimum predictive ability (R2: 0.6552 vs. 0.6416, RPD: 1.65 vs. 1.63) and was straightforward, requiring only three bands. These results show that it is feasible and practical to establish an accurate and rapid estimation model of the soil copper content using FOD spectra.

Monitoring the soil copper pollution degree based on the reflectance spectrum of an arid desert plant.

Visible and near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy offers a rapid, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly method for monitoring copper pollution in the soil. However, the application of this approach in vegetation-covered areas is still a challenge due to interference from plants, making it difficult to acquire soil reflectance spectra. To address this problem, this study assesses whether the reflectance spectrum of a widely distributed arid desert plant (Seriphidium terrae-albae) can be used to rapidly evaluate copper pollution in the soil. A pot experiment was conducted for five months from April to September 2019. The reflectance spectra of the plants were measured in June, July, and August 2019 using an ASD Fieldspec3 spectrometer. Each month, the five vegetation indexes with the highest correlation with the evaluation value of the copper pollution degree were input into an extreme learning machine (ELM) to build a model to monitor the degree of copper pollution in the soil. The results showed that the model could quickly evaluate the degree of copper pollution, but the accuracy varied widely among the calculated vegetation indexes depending on the month when the spectral data were extracted. The model constructed by selecting ten vegetation indexes composed of plant spectra collected in June and July provides high recognition accuracy, reaching 89.02%. Only seven bands were needed due to the model's low complexity, which means that it has great potential to be applied to remote sensing images to establish a real-time monitoring system to detect copper pollution in the soil. This study proposed a simple and rapid method for monitoring copper pollution in soil using plant spectra, and this method could provide extremely valuable for soil protection and management in arid desert areas.