Feasibility of the inversion of electromagnetic models to estimate soil salinity using SAOCOM data

The present work evaluates the feasibility of the inversion of electromagnetic models in order to estimate soil salinity through the imaginary part of the dielectric constant using SAOCOM images (L-band, 1.275 GHz) over an agricultural area in Córdoba, Argentina. Considering that the real and imaginary part of the dielectric constant behave differently, SAR images can be exploited to detect soils affected by salts: while the real part is basically independent of soil salinity, the imaginary part is highly sensitive to variations of electrical conductivity, linked to the content of salts in the soil. This fact allows the identification of saline s oils from n on-saline s oils. The results obtained with empirically corrected POM model with SAOCOM data show promising results, with values of the imaginary part of the dielectric constant in non-saline validation sites in the range of 4.497 to 17.711, describing a framework towards future implementations of methodologies with SAR images for the detection and monitoring of this problematic.