Multivariate statistical classification of soil spectra

The purpose of this work was to evaluate whether AVIRIS (Advanced Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer) bands can be used to discriminate between soils having similar properties, as well as to compare AVIRIS spectra with those from laboratory measurements. Multivariate analysis techniques show that two soils belonging to the same series and a third soil belonging to a different, but related series can be discriminated at a high level of accuracy using reflectance data from AVIRIS or from laboratory measurements. It is also shown that wavelengths important in discriminating soils were highly correlated between AVIRIS and laboratory data. The distribution of variance and weighting functions also show consistent patterns between these data sets.