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.