EGU General Assembly 2011: session announcement "Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy in soil science: new ideas, approaches and strategies"

[Cesar Guerrero]

Dear colleagues,

A session entitled “Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy in soil science:
new ideas, approaches and strategies” will be held in the next EGU
General Assembly, for one day between 03-08 April 2011 in Vienna
(Austria). More information about this session (SSS6.5) is provided at
the bottom of this message.

As in past years, this session will provide an excellent opportunity
to share experiences, establish current knowledge, describe the many
applications, present recent advances and discuss future
possibilities, emerging ideas, different approaches and new strategies
for research and adoption of the visible, near infrared and mid
infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy techniques in soil science.

You are invited to visit the following links for more information
about EGU, Sessions in the Soil System Sciences of the EGU and the
session SSS6.5, respectively:

- European Geosciences Union (EGU): http://meetings.copernicus.org/egu2011/

- Sessions in the Soil System Sciences section of the EGU:
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2011/sessionprogramme/SSS

- Session SSS6.5 “Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy in soil science:
new ideas, approaches and strategies”: http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2011/session/7947


Abstract submission is open now and you are also invited to submit
your abstracts. The deadline for the receipt of Abstracts is 10
January, 2011.
For abstract submission, please use the next link:
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2011/abstractsubmission/7947

It will be an honour for us that you will attend the meeting and share
you knowledge and valuable results with us.

Please, let interested colleagues know.

Best wishes,

The conveners (Raphael Viscarra Rossel, Abdul M. Mouazen and César
Guerrero,)

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Session description:

Session SSS6.5 of the Soil System Sciences section of the EGU-2011:
Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy in soil science: new ideas,
approaches and strategies

The use of visible (Vis), near-infrared (NIR) and mid-infrared (mid-
IR) diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) in soil science and land
resource assessment has attracted much attention over the last ten
years. This is reflected by the large numbers of papers on both Vis-
NIR and mid-IR in the scientific literature over this period.

Soil Vis-NIR and mid-IR techniques are integrative in that they
contain information on both organic and inorganic soil composition,
which make them particularly useful for determining various physical,
chemical and biological soil properties. Advances in chemometrics and
computing power have allowed to extract such information from the
spectra by modelling of complex relationships that exist in these
data.

DRS has some important advantages over conventional soil analysis. For
example, the techniques are non-destructive, they are highly
reproducible, they are rapid, cost effective, easy to operate, a
single spectrum can produce information on various soil properties,
small quantities of sample are needed for analysis, they require
minimal sample preparations, and they do not require the use of
environmentally harmful chemicals. Hence the techniques can be also
used to provide quantitative information for input into environmental
and soil process models and digital soil mapping.

The objective of this session is to bring together soil and land
resource scientists working with Vis, NIR, and mid-IR diffuse
reflectance spectroscopy. This session will provide an opportunity to
share experiences, establish current knowledge, describe the many
applications, present recent advances, new strategies, and discuss
future possibilities for research and adoption of the techniques. We
especially welcomed abstracts dealing with new ideas, approaches and
strategies for a better understanding and applicability of DRS
techniques.

This session deals with the following topics:

* New ideas, different approaches and emerging strategies for research
in Vis, NIR and mid-IR DRS in soil science:
- Empirical vs theoretical approaches during modelling of soil
properties
- Strategies for the extrapolation of calibrations to different
spatial scales
- Strategies to link spectroscopic data from different sources (lab-,
field- and remote sensing)
- Global vs Local calibrations for soil properties
- The spectrum as an integration of physical, chemical and biological
soil properties
- etc.


* Provision of soil information for soil resource assessment and
mapping:
- Laboratory-based Vis-NIR and mid-IR DRS for rapid estimation of soil
properties (chemical, physical, biological)
- Proximal and remote soil sensing (i.e. field based) using Vis-NIR
and mid-IR frequencies
- Estimation of soil organic carbon (type, quality and quantity)
- Estimation of soil mineral composition
- Soil classification by Vis-NIR and mid-IR DRS
- Quantification of environmental impacts on soils, e.g. soil
degradation and rehabilitation
- Precision agriculture
- Biogeochemical processes in soils
- Characterization of composting and organic wastes
- etc.


* Technical aspects:
- Evaluation of the effect of sample preparation on measurement
accuracy
- Non-linear methods of calibration
- Calibration transfers
- Quantifying uncertainty in models and predictions
- Chemometrics
- Data mining
- etc.


* Instrumentation:
- laboratory spectrometers
- portable spectrometers
- etc.


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The conveners of SSS6.5

Raphael A. VISCARRA ROSSEL: raphael.vis...@csiro.au
Abdul M. MOUAZEN: a.mo...@cranfield.ac.uk
César GUERRERO: cesar.g...@umh.es