Relations between Soil Color and Landsat Reflectance on Semiarid Rangelands

The reflectance of radiant energy from the earth's surface in sparsely vegetated arid rangelands is determined by the characteristics of the soil and geologic material on the land's surface. This study measured the color characteristics of earth surface materials collected from a semiarid rangeland in southeastern Arizona and compared these colors to digital numbers recorded by Landsat. Other parameters including particle size, slope, and vegetation were also evaluated, but the color characteristics of the fine earth soil and rock fragments measured with a colorimeter were most strongly correlated to Landsat digital numbers. The numerical values of the color components (hue, value, and chroma) for three different soil and rock fragment size fractions were related in a multiple linear regression equation to Landsat digital reflectance numbers. The R 2 for Band 4 (0.5–0.6 µm), Band 5 (0.6–0.7 µm), Band 6 (0.7–0.8 µm), Band 7 (0.8–1.1 µm), and the sum of the four bands were 0.85, 0.69, 0.71, 0.68, and 0.75, respectively. The color of earth surface features in sparsely vegetated land areas should be precisely and accurately determined because of its very strong correlation with remotely sensed spectral data. The use of colorimeters to quantify the color of earth surface features will significantly help in evaluating remotely sensed data, particularly for land‐scapes in arid regions.