Prediction of soil properties for agricultural and environmental applications from infrared and x-ray soil spectral properties

Many of today's most pressing problems facing developing countries, such as food security, climate change, and environmental protection, require large area data on soil functional capacity - the capacity of land to sustain delivery of essential ecosystem services, such as soil fertility and carbon sequestration. Livelihoods and economies in most developing countries depend critically on the ecosystem services that land provides, however, current information on land health and degradation is grossly inadequate (UNEP, 2012a). The lack of reliable data poses a fundamental bottleneck to the development of sound policies and for assessing progress towards goals throughout the developing world (UNEP, 2012a). Many Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) landscapes are now characterized by a combination of poor soil health, poor crop health, poor water quality, and consequently contributing to poor human health and low levels of economic development (Shepherd and Walsh, 2007). African smallholder farmers are locked into poverty traps that are preventing urgently needed investments to maintain soil resources, and thus likely to result in further decline in agricultural productivity and provision of ecosystem services (AfSIS, 2012-2013; Nziguheba et al., 2010, Shepherd and Walsh, 2007). In January 2005, the UN Millennium project released a plan on meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and one of the key recommendations was on soil nutrient replenishment (UN Millenium Project, 2005; Nziguheba et al., 2010; Sachs and McArthur, 2005). Another major component was the Hunger Task Force recommendation to focus on soil health as an essential part of the synergistic intervention to fight malnutrition (Sanchez and Swaminathan 2005) and to increase food production. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) was launched in 2007, together with major programs in improved soil health with the overall vision to eliminate hunger and poverty in SSA (Sanchez et al., 2009a; Nziguheba et al., 2010). The first step towards this vision of AGRA is increased crop yields through rapid, sustainable agricultural growth based on smallholders, followed by a multisector approach that exploits the synergies among improved crop production, nutrition, health, and education (AGRA, 2013; Nziguheba et al., 2010). Achieving this major vision and other future plans will require reliable up-to-date information about soil health. However, existing gaps in knowledge about the condition and trend of SSA soils is highly fragmented hence the urgent 3 need for accurate, up-to-date, geo-referenced soil information that will provide the basis for a sound decision-making in the implementation of soil management strategies for Africa and other core investments in infrastructure for development such as soil fertility.

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