Use of airborne MIVIS imaging spectrometer data for soil degradation assessment in the Fortore Beneventano (Southern Apennines, Italy)

The paper describes the first stage of an experiment, performed in the Fortore beneventano (Italy)mountain community, to test and enhance methods for mapping soil conditions from spectroradiometric measurements and hyperspectral images. This required as a pre-requisite the validation of MIVIS data characteristics and the correction of atmospheric and illumination effects resulting into the conversion of radiances to relative reflectance values. After radiometric rectification of the image data and the collection of a field/laboratory spectral library, Linear spectral mixture modelling (SMA) was used to decompose image spectra into fractions of spectrally distinct mixing components. The resulting abundance estimates (fractions) then were analysed to identify soil conditions as well as to obtain an improved measure of dry and green vegetation cover, which are considered important parameters for monitoring soil erosion processes and changes of vegetation cover density as indicators for desertification.