Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and digital soil mapping for assessing soil-associated off-road vehicle mobility risk.

Soil attributes such as granulometric fractions and Atterberg limits (LL: liquid limit, PL: plastic limit, and PI: plasticity index) are needed to assess off-road vehicle mobility (OVM) risks. Parameters describing these attributes are generally measured in soil samples collected from a few locations through cumbersome laboratory methods. Although diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) can rapidly yield estimates for soil attributes in samples collected from specific locations and digital soil mapping (DSM) can transform such discrete measurements into spatially-continuous inference systems, these two technologies are rarely used for assessing OVM risks.

Climate-catchment-soil control on hydrological droughts in peninsular India.

Most land surface system models and observational assessments ignore detailed soil characteristics while describing the drought attributes such as growth, duration, recovery, and the termination rate of the event. With the national-scale digital soil maps available for India, we assessed the climate-catchment-soil nexus using daily observed streamflow records from 98 sites in tropical rain-dominated catchments of peninsular India (8-25° N, 72-86° E). Results indicated that climate-catchment-soil properties may control hydrological drought attributes to the tune of 14-70%.