Using remote sensing for monitoring the dynamic of soil organic carbon concentration in Lake Valencia basin, Venezuela, based on Landsat 8 data

Maintaining or increasing SOC concentration is fundamental for reducing the effects of global warming and increasing soil productivity. In this paper, a method based on Landsat 8 OLI products was developed for qualitatively monitoring in the Lake Valencia basin (Venezuela) the dynamic of SOC concentration between the years 2013 to 2018. The developed method uses the Green (B3), NIR (B5) and SW1 (B6) bands of Landsat 8 OLI sensor for detecting changes in the spectral signatures of bare soils that indicate possible variations in their concentrations of SOC. It was found that for the study period, the Lake Valencia basin soils do not present spectral features of significant variation in SOC concentration. An area of 8.61Km2 (0.3% of the study area) was identified as a zone with a possible reduction of SOC concentration. In case of insufficient data for developing remote sensing based predictive models, the proposed method allows qualitatively monitoring and categorizing the dynamic of SOC concentration and identifying areas with spectral features of a possible variation in SOC concentration. © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2020.