A Field Study of Soil Biochar Treatment Response Using Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS)

Biomass from agriculture production can be converted to biochar using the pyrolysis gasification process, which reduces the carbon footprint when added to soil. How to precisely, promptly, cost-effectively, and on a large scale map, the effect of biochar applied to soil in terms of water holding capacity continues to be a significant challenge. This paper is the first to reveal a comprehensive study demonstrating the feasibility of adding biochar to enhance the quantifying of soil temperature and soil moisture using image indexes (Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index (VARI) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)). The significance of this work is that it provides the foundation for the subsequent assessments of carbon-negative technologies. We evaluated the correlation of VARI, NDVI, and soil temperature, Volumetric Water Content (VWC) under different treatments. Results show that the correlations of NDVI, VARI, and soil temperature and VWC in the treatment with biochar were 52.94% and 46.77% higher than those in the soil without biochar.