Use of remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS) for salinity assessment of Vaal-Harts irrigation scheme, South Africa

Abstract

Soil salinity is a critical environmental problem in many countries around the world especially the arid and semi-arid countries like South Africa. The problem has great impact on soil fertility which in turns has a great effect on soil productivity. This paper addresses the use of remote sensing and GIS in the assessment of salinity using Landsat enhanced thematic mapper plus (ETM+) data of the Vaal-Harts irrigation scheme acquired with other field data sets and a topographical map to show the spectral classes and salt-affected areas for the years under assessment (1991 to 2005).