Generating Soil Parent Material Environmental Covariates Using Sentinel – 2A Images for Delineating Soil Attributes

Soil mapping procedures typically involve the combination of possible soil-forming SCORPAN factors. Among the factors, parent materials/ mineralogy has been considered important for the soil classification besides the Organisms (O) and Relief (R). Inclusion of the parent material covariate for the Digital soil mapping involves implication through geological maps, spectral derivatives and predictive modelling. In this study, the most prominent parent materials identified were derived using the spectral indices formulated based on the Sentinel – 2A multispectral information. While considering the coarse spatial resolution constraints of the existing Landsat -8 bands that may limit certain applications, Sentinel-2 images were used for the indices derivation. The generated mineral maps can support the digital soil mapping of the soil attributes at different spatial scales.