Obtaining useful high-resolution soil data from proximallysensed electrical conductivity/resistivity (PSEC/R) surveys

Alex. B. McBratney, Budiman Minasny and Brett M. Whelan Australian Centre for Precision Agriculture, JRA McMillan Building A05, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Alex.McBratney@acss.usyd.edu.au Abstract Apparent soil electrical conductivity (ECa) mapping has become a widely used tool in precision agriculture, because of its perceived ability to reflect soil properties which may be useful for delineating management zones. ECa has been used to infer soil clay content, profile thickness and chemical properties by means of regression. So far the approaches have not made the best use of the data - simple correlations are being sought without basic soil science reasoning. From knowledge of soil science, we expect strong and understandable relationships between certain soil properties and the apparent electrical conductivity. This paper attempts to derive a simple model relating soil ECa to its contributing factors and illustrates the practical applications through an example of soil clay content estimation. Key words: electrical conductivity, soil resistivity, mapping soil properties Introduction Recently we have seen extensive use of electromagnetic induction and Wenner-array methods for soil electrical conductivity mapping in precision agriculture (Kitchen et al., 1999; Corwin and Lesch, 2003; 2005). Such proximal sensing methods offer the possibility of producing highresolution maps of soil properties. At present, only the mapped spatial patterns of ECa have been used in conjunction with yield maps to delineate management zones. Research has targeted the establishment of simple relationships between measured properties and ECa (Sudduth et al.,2005). While another approach has been to use ECa as a covariate in co-kriging or regression-kriging exercises (Knotters et al., 1995). This may not make the best use of the data as simple correlations are being sought without basic soil science reasoning. From soil science knowledge, we expect relatively strong and understandable relationships between certain soil properties and the soil ECa. The theoretical relationships are better developed between soil properties and high frequency (GHz) devices such as time-domain reflectometers, capacitance probes and ground-penetrating radars (McBratney & Minasny, 2004). These devices offer the possibility of measuring both parts of the soil electrical permittivity, i.e., the capacitance (which is closely related to volumetric soil moisture content) and the conductivity (which is more indirectly related to a number of soil properties). The lower frequency devices, such as electromagnetic induction (e.g. EM-38) or Veris only allow estimation of the soil electrical conductivity (or its reciprocal the soil electrical resistivity1), and therefore inference of soil properties is more difficult. In this paper we attempt to model the response and present a possible analysis of soil ECa data.

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mS m-1 = 1000 m, 100 mS m-1 = 10 m

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Theory Rhoades et al. (1989) modelled ECa as a function of mobile and immobile soil water content, bulk density, and the soil water electrical conductivity for the purpose of diagnosing soil salinity. Pozdnyakova (1999) postulated that the relationship between soil properties and resistivity shows an exponential decrease. This is based on the assumption that electrical parameters such as resistivity and potential are exponentially related to the volume density of mobile electrical charges. In other words soil properties, S, e.g. salt content, moisture, CEC, etc. have a logarithmic relationship with ECa: S = log(ECa) + where and and are an empirical constants. Zhou et al. (2001) mapped the soil profile water content from Wenner array measurements based on Archies empirical relationship (Archie, 1942): ECa/ECs = (/s) (2) (1)

where ECs is the electrical conductivity when the soil is at saturation, is the volumetric moisture content, s is the moisture content when the soil is at saturation, and is an empirical constant. For soil conductivity measurements in the field, we consider three main situations which form the basis of a linear decision sequence for the interpretation of ECa data. If condition (1) applies, do (1) then stop. If (1) does not apply and (2) does, do 2 then stop. If (1) and (2) do not apply, do (3). The conditions are as follows: (1) Hyper-electrolytic Where there is a large amount of electrolyte relative to the soils charge, the soil may be termed hyper-electrolytic. This occurs approximately when the ECa /clay ratio is larger than ~5 (ECa measured in mS/m and clay in mass percentage). In this situation, the ECa measurements can only be used for determining salinity levels. This was the main use of electromagnetic induction instruments in the 1990s (Rhoades et al., 1989). If there is a smaller amount of electrolyte relative to the charge such material may be termed ortho-electrolytic. In such situations, we can use the data for potentially mapping other soil properties following steps 2 and 3: (2) Variation of solum thickness If the profile thickness (p) is thinner than the effective depth of measurement (d), and the EC of the underlying material is much smaller than that of the soil, the ECa measured will be functionally related to profile thickness (Doolittle et al., 1994). The functional relationship can be found by integrating the response function of the instrument:
di

EC
j di
1

z dz EC j

(3)

where is the instrument depth (z) response function. The response function for the EM-38 instrument can be found in McNeill (1980), the cumulative response function turns out to be fairly linear within limits. A similar relationship is expected for the Veris instrument. This is the basis for mapping soil thickness.

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(3) Variation in clay content and volumetric moisture content If a field is assumed to have p > d, that there is no compaction and the electrolyte concentration is in balance with the soil charge, then the ECa is primarily due to the variation in clay and moisture content. For these conditions we propose a model in the form of a simple Multiplicative EC equation (MECE):

ECa

clay 100

B
s

CEC CEC0

b 0

1 E

T 293 293

(4)

where clay = percent weight of clay, is volumetric water content, s is saturated water content, CEC is cation exchange capacity, CEC0 is the CEC of the reference soil material, b is soil bulk density, 0 is the bulk density of the reference material, and T is the absolute temperature. A, B, C, D, E are empirical constants relating the contribution of each component to the ECa and a, b, c, d, e are empirical constants accounting for the nonlinear relationships between soil properties and ECa. This model attempts to scale the variation of the properties effect on EC where each of the properties is normalized by a standard value. For a constant clay content, CEC and temperature, then equation 4 reduces to Archies equation 2. If temperature correction is assumed and the bulk density b is reflected in volumetric water content, assuming a linear relationship (a = b = c = 1), Eq (3) can be reduced to:

ECa

clay 100

CEC CEC0

(5)

where is a scaling factor (unit mS m-1) which summarises the constants A, B, C, D, E. Methods The only unknown parameter in our model (equation 5), is . To estimate its value we used data from field studies in different parts of NSW, Australia. Soil samples were taken from 55 sites where ECa was measured by the Veris 3000 at two depths 0-30 cm, and 30-90 cm. Moisture content was monitored by neutron probe and soil samples at the two depths were taken for physical (particlesize distribution) and chemical analysis (pH, EC1:5, Organic Carbon, exchangeable cations, and CEC). This training dataset comprised 105 data points, with clay contents between 11% and 80 % (mean 59 %), CEC in the range 90-790 mmol+ kg-1 (mean 460 mmol+ kg-1) and the soils are dominated mainly by smectitic clay minerals (mean CEC of the clay = 590 mmol+ kg-1). To illustrate the full model, we apply equation 5 to a soil database from Edgeroi, north-western NSW, Australia. The soil dataset consists of 210 soil profiles sampled on a systematic, equilateral triangular grid with approximately 2.8 km spacing between sites (McGarry et al., 1989). The database contains physical and chemical soil properties of each soil profile to a depth of 130 cm (total some 1700 data points). The database covers a range of soil with clay content ranging from 3 to 78% (mean 45%) and CEC of 5 to 700 mmol+ kg-1 (mean 350 mmol+ kg-1). Water content at field capacity (potential of -10 kPa) and wilting point (-1500 kPa) were estimated from particlesize distribution and estimated bulk density using the pedotransfer functions of Minasny and McBratney (2002). Results and discussion Equation 5 was fitted to the training data set, and we obtain a value of = 631.8 mS m-1 (R2 = 0.67), where clay is in percent by mass, and CEC0 is 1000 mmol+ kg-1. The results are shown in
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Figure 1, as we can see the model represents an increase of ECa as a function of both clay and moisture content. We then apply equation 5 with = 631.8 mS m-1 to the Edgeroi soil database, ECa at field capacity and wilting point is predicted from particle-size distribution. Figure 2 shows the relationship between ECa and clay content at field capacity. The relationship shows scattered points and not a perfect curve as it is influenced by variation in CEC, and saturated water content s. Domsch and Giebel (2004) derived a linear relationship (equation 6) between depth-weighted clay content and ECa as measured by the EM-38 instrument from experimental sites in Brandeburg, Germany where the soil was at field capacity with clay content ranging between 0-30%, Clay = 3.95 + 0.526 ECa (6)

This function (equation 6) is overlain in Figure 2. It shows that this relationship fits slightly under our low clay content data. This is mainly a consequence of the local model being calibrated to mainly smectite dominant soils, while the relationship of Domsch and Giebel was derived from kaolinite dominant soils. Figure 2 also shows the variation in clay content as a function of CEC. It shows that soil with low CEC tends to have smaller ECa. The values obtained here are much larger compared with studies in the US and Europe where reported ECa values are usually less than 100 mS m-1(e.g. Corwin and Lesch, 2005; Sudduth et al., 2005). The values obtained here are again attributed to the soils with smectite dominant clay. Kaolin dominant soil materials will have a smaller conductivity for a given clay content, and soil which is illite dominant or has a mixed mineralogy will have a larger conductivity, but smaller than smectitic soil materials. Figure 3 shows the relationship between ECa and water content at field capacity and wilting point from the predicted Edgeroi soil database. Also shown on the graph is Archies law (equation 2) when = 2 which passes through the data. Our model indicates for a particular moisture content, ECa values vary depending on the clay content. Thus is a function of clay content. The graph also shows that when the soil is dry (at wilting point) the variation of for a value of ECa is not as great as when the soil is wet (at field capacity). Table 1 summarises the ECa values for soil with different

300 0.8

250

ECa (mS m )

200

-1

0.6

150 0.4 100 0.2 50

0 0 20 40 60 80

Clay content (%)

Figure 1. Relationship between clay content and measured ECa using Veris instrument. Curves represent the fit of our model (equation 5) to the calibration data (150 data points), numbers next to each curve indicate the moisture saturation (/s).
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Figure 2. Variation in ECa as a function of clay content for soil at field capacity from the Edgeroi dataset. The numbers represent CEC (in mmol+ kg-1), while the shades (colours) designate the likely dominant clay mineralogy of the soil.

clay contents. This can be used as a guideline for interpreting the ECa results measured by electromagnetic induction or direct current methods. Finally the application of this technique to fine-scale mapping of clay content is examined. Figure 4a shows the ECa measurement using Veris 3000 shallow mode (effective depth 0-30 cm) in a field on Billa Billa, South-East Queensland, Australia. We wish to predict clay content and for this field using equation 5 with known , and assuming a constant moisture potential at field capacity (-10 kPa) across the field (rather than a constant ). The first step to solve this problem is to reduce equation 5 to a form that only involves clay content. This can be achieved using pedotransfer functions. Water retention at field capacity, s, and CEC are related to clay content based on the neural-network pedotransfer functions developed by Minasny and McBratney (2002) and McBratney and Minasny (2004): = f(clay, BD),BD = f(clay, depth), CEC = f(clay) (7)

where f represents neural-network pedotransfer functions. As all the variables in equation 5 are in terms of clay content (and depth which is known), a nonlinear root finding algorithm (Press et al., 1992) is used to estimate clay from ECa: clay = f-1(ECa) (8)

Figure 4b shows such a prediction and potentially these maps are useful for many applications, particularly precision agriculture. Using this method offers improved interpretation of the data

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Figure 3. Relationship between ECa and moisture content () for soil at field capacity (circles) and wilting point (crosses), accounting for variation in bulk density and CEC from the Edgeroi dataset. Curve represents Archies Law with ECs = 250 mS/m, s = 0.5, and = 2. Table 1. Relationship between clay content and apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) and resistivity (R) for soil with different clay contents at -10 kPa and -1500 kPa. Values derived from our model applied to the Edgeroi dataset (smectite dominant) Clay content (%) Field capacity (at -10 kPa) m3 m-3 0.19 0.23 0.30 0.35 0.40 0.44 0.46 ECa mS m-1 0.5 0.4 55 25 16 52 21 90 25 136 29 192 33 R m 2500 1700 600 626 58 43 26 32 12 6 83 51 Wilting point (-1500 kPa) m3 m-3 0.06 0.09 0.16 0.21 0.28 0.33 0.37 ECa mS m-1 0.1 0.1 23 14 11 33 15 63 20 103 26 156 32 R m 8000 7000 450 1500 115 91 44 55 18 10 11 5 71

0-10 10-20 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 >60

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70

170 mS m-1

30

60 %

Figure 4. Raw data of field-measured ECa from Veris 3000 (left) and predicted clay content (right), (coordinates in metres, data courtesy of Mr. M. Short).

gathered by various ECa devices. ECa surveys should be performed when the soil is around field capacity .i.e, one to three days after irrigation or a large rainfall event. This will allow the field capacity assumption to be valid and at these relatively high moisture contents there will be better discrimination between small and large clay contents. Conclusions Measurement from low frequency (low induction number) devices can be used to infer soil properties which in turn can be used in many agricultural/agronomic decision processes. For improved inference however, 1. Measurements should be made at an approximately fixed and high soil water potential, e.g., field capacity. 2. Statement of the soil mineralogy is important for interpretation. The ratio of clay content to cation exchange capacity can give some indication of mineralogy. 3. Independent on-the-go measurements of soil properties should be made using near infrared measurements and/or high induction number devices (e.g. GPR). References
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Doolittle, J.A., Sudduth, K.A., Kitchen, N.R., Indorante, S.J. 1994. Estimating depth to claypans using electromagnetic induction methods. Journal of Soil & Water Conservation 49 572-575. Kitchen, N.R., Sudduth, K.A., Drummond, S.T. 1999. Soil electrical conductivity as a crop productivity measure for claypan soils. Journal of Production Agriculture 12 607-617. Knotters, M. Brus, D.J., Oude-Voshaar, J.H. 1995. A comparison of kriging, co-kriging and kriging combined with regression for spatial interpolation of horizon depth with censored observations. Geoderma. 67 227246. McBratney, A.B., Minasny, B. 2004. Soil inference systems. pp. 323-348. In (Y. Pachepsky and W.J. Rawls (eds)), Development of Pedotransfer Functions in Soil Hydrology. Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. McGarry, D., Ward, W.T., McBratney, A.B. 1989. Soil Studies in the Lower Namoi Valley: Methods and Data. The Edgeroi Data Set. CSIRO Division of Soils, Glen Osmond, South Australia. McNeill, J.D. 1980. Electromagnetic terrain conductivity measurement at low induction numbers. Tech. Note TN-6. Geonics Limited, Mississauga, ON, Canada. Minasny, B., McBratney, A.B. 2002. The neuro-m method for fitting neural network parametric pedotransfer functions. Soil Science Society of America Journal 66 352-361. Pozdnyakova, L. 1999. Electrical Properties of Soils. PhD Dissertation, University of Wyoming: Laramie, WY, USA. 136 pp. Press, W.H., Teukolsky, S.A., Vetterling, W.T., Flannery, B.P. 1992. Numerical Recipes: The art of scientific computing. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. Rhoades, J.D., Manteghi, N.A., Shouse, P.J., Alves, W.J. 1989. Soil electrical conductivity and soil salinity: New formulations and calibrations. Soil Science Society of America Journal 53 433-439. Sudduth, K.A., Kitchen, N.R., Wiebold, W.J., Batchelor, W.D., Bollero, G.A., Bullock, D.G., Clay, D.E., Palm, H.l., Pierce, f.J., Schuler, R.T., Thelen, K.D. 2005. Relating apparent electrical conductivity to soil properties across the north-central USA. Computers & Electronics in Agriculture 46 263-283. Zhou, Q.Y., Shimada, J., Sato, A. 2001. Three-dimensional and temporal monitoring of soil water content using electrical resistivity tomography. Water Resources Research 37 273-285.

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