Bidirectional reflectance of bare soil surfaces in the visible and near‐infrared range

Abstract

A deeper understanding of interactions of electromagnetic radiation with interpreted objects, as well as technological advance, is important for a further improvement of remote sensing methods. It also concerns soils, which like many natural objects, show variation in their brightness due to the direction of irradiating solar energy and the direction along which the reflected energy is detected. On the one hand, the knowledge of the interaction mechanisms, verified by laboratory and field measurements of soil spectral properties, enables us to define optimum source and sensor configurations for practical purposes. On the other hand, it makes possible the conversion of the remote sensing data collected with different illumination and viewing conditions to be standardized, which contributes to improved interpretations. The goal of this paper is to review physical principles of surface interactions with radiation in the visible and near‐infrared range, as well as the measurement of soil bidirectional reflectance and modeling the results.