Science of the Total Environment 707 (2020) 136092

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Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

Machine learning-based detection of soil salinity in an arid desert region,

Northwest China: A comparison between Landsat-8 OLI and
Sentinel-2 MSI
Jingzhe Wang a,b,c, Jianli Ding a,b,⁎, Danlin Yu d,e, Dexiong Teng a,b, Bin He f, Xiangyue Chen a,b, Xiangyu Ge a,b,
Zipeng Zhang a,b, Yi Wang g, Xiaodong Yang h, Tiezhu Shi c, Fenzhen Su i
a
Key Laboratory of Smart City and Environment Modelling of Higher Education Institute, College of Resources and Environment Science, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 800046, China
b
Key Laboratory of Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, China
c
Key Laboratory for Geo-Environmental Monitoring of Coastal Zone of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Urban Informatics, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Spatial
Smart Sensing and Services, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
d
School of Sociology and Population Studies, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China
e
Department of Earth and Environmental Studies, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, 07043, USA
f
Guangdong Key Laboratory of Integrated Agro-environmental Pollution Control and Management, Guangdong Institute of Eco-environmental Science & Technology, Guangzhou 510650, China
g
State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
h
Department of Geography & Spatial Information Technology, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
i
State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• Differences between Landsat-8 OLI and

Sentinel-2 MSI are distinguishable.
• Satellite derived surface soil moisture is
significantly correlated with soil salin-
ity.
• Cubist is a satisfactory approach for soil
salinity mapping (RPIQ = 6.824).
• MSI image with finer spatial resolution
performs better than OLI.
• We need to pay more attention to the
environmental covariates.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Accurate assessment of soil salinization is considered as one of the most important steps in combating global cli-
Received 5 August 2019 mate change, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. Multi-spectral remote sensing (RS) data including Landsat
Received in revised form 10 December 2019 series provides the potential for frequent surveys for soil salinization at various scales and resolutions. Addition-
Accepted 10 December 2019
ally, the recently launched Sentinel-2 satellite constellation has temporal revisiting frequency of 5 days, which
Available online 13 December 2019
has been proven to be an ideal approach to assess soil salinity. Yet, studies on detailed comparison in soil salinity
Editor: Paulo Pereira tracking between Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI remain limited. For this purpose, we collected a total of 64
topsoil samples in an arid desert region, the Ebinur Lake Wetland National Nature Reserve (ELWNNR) to compare
Keywords: the monitoring accuracy between Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI. In this study, the Cubist model was trained
Soil salinization using RS-derived covariates (spectral bands, Tasseled Cap transformation-derived wetness (TCW), and satellite

⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: watarid@xju.edu.cn (J. Ding).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.136092
0048-9697/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 707 (2020) 136092

Sentinel-2 MSI salinity indices) and laboratory measured electrical conductivity of 1:5 soil:water extract (EC). The results
Landsat-8 OLI showed that the measured soil salinity had a significant correlation with surface soil moisture (Pearson's r =
Cubist 0.75). The introduction of TCW generated satisfactory estimating performance. Compared with OLI dataset, the
Remote sensing
combination of MSI dataset and Cubist model yielded overall better model performance and accuracy measures
Surface soil moisture
(R2 = 0.912, RMSE = 6.462 dS m−1, NRMSE = 9.226%, RPD = 3.400 and RPIQ = 6.824, respectively). The differ-
ences between Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI were distinguishable. In conclusion, MSI image with finer spa-
tial resolution performed better than OLI. Combining RS data sets and their derived TCW within a Cubist
framework yielded accurate regional salinity map. The increased temporal revisiting frequency and spectral res-
olution of MSI data are expected to be positive enhancements to the acquisition of high-quality soil salinity infor-
mation of desert soils.
© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction (SSM) has an essential effect on soil salinity as well as corresponding

Soil salinization is a global ecological environment issue, which has
caused severe soil degradation/desertification, especially in arid and
semi-arid regions (Ding and Yu, 2014; Ivushkin et al., 2019; Sidike
et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2019b). Salt-affected soil restoration and land
reclamation are essential for improving eco-environmental quality
and regional sustainable development (Gorji et al., 2017; Peng et al.,
2019). Accordingly, obtaining the dynamic soil salinity information
with high efficiency, low cost, in real-time will provide the essential
quantitative data for informed land management.
In the conventional way, to generate detailed digital soil salinity dis-
tribution in large scale, complicated sample collection is necessary. This
often makes soil salinity mapping exceedingly laborious and time con-
suming. In recent years, remote sensing (RS) technology has attracted
scholars' and practitioners' attention as a promising method for cost-
effective monitoring and mapping of soil salinity over large areas. This
is because remote sensing images have unparalleled advantages in ob-
serving the ground at various scales and resolutions (Farifteh et al.,
2006; Hu et al., 2019; Metternicht and Zinck, 2003). Nowadays, satellite
RS data plays a fundamental role in global and regional soil salinity
monitoring and mapping (Ding and Yu, 2014; Fan et al., 2016;
Ivushkin et al., 2019) . The new generation of polar-orbiting sun-
synchronous multispectral RS data has recently become available.
Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) has been widely used for im-
proved global environment and security monitoring at the medium res-
olution (30 m), especially for soil salinity assessment (Tran et al., 2019;
Wulder et al., 2019). However, accuracy of multispectral analysis is
often limited primarily because of coarse spatial resolution and broad
bandwidths (Peng et al., 2019). The Sentinel-2 (S2) satellite equipped
with the Multi Spectral Instrument (MSI) provides images with high
spatial, spectral and temporal resolution. These images provide alterna-
tive perspectives for potentially improved detection accuracy of soil sa-
linity. Two-satellite Sentinel-2 missions (S2A and S2B) were launched
on June 23rd, 2015 and March 7th, 2017, respectively. The on-board
MSI has 13 spectral bands with fine resolution (up to 10 m). Bannari
et al. (2018) applied the Sentinel 2-MSI for soil salinity detection in
the Kingdom of Bahrain, showing the potential of this data for soil salin-
ity detection. The introduction of S2 data with finer pixel size provides
the opportunity for improved characterization of soil salinity. It is pre-
dicted that the application of Sentinel-2 MSI (S2) data will greatly im-
prove soil salinity monitoring (Wang et al., 2019a).
Many regression methods including multivariable linear regression
(MLR), partial least square regression (PLSR) have been widely used
to infer the potential relationships between RS data (reflectance and
spectral indices) and soil properties. However, successful implementa-
tion of these linear models must satisfy certain assumptions
(e.g., standard normal distribution and obvious linear relationships).
Consequently, linear approach may cause large error, especially over re-
gions where spatiotemporal dynamic nature of soil salinity is large as in
our study area. Additionally, soil salinity is significantly affected by dif-
ferent environmental factors. Among them, surface soil moisture
reflected radiance (Lobell and Asner, 2002). However, this specific co-
variate is rarely used to estimate soil salinity in previous studies. In
this investigation, we propose to include it as a potential explanatory
variable in our models. In natural environment, soil properties usually
follow non-normal distributions, which limits the inferencing and
quantifying capabilities of regular regression models. Additionally, rela-
tionships between RS data and soil salinity are seldom linear. The Cubist
model, a popular non-linear, rule-based machine learning technology,
has been recommended for performing precise soil salinity estimation
in some recent studies (Peng et al., 2019; Zeraatpisheh et al., 2019).
In this study, to obtain the ground-truth soil salinity information,
field works were conducted in the Ebinur Lake Wetland National Nature
Reserve (ELWNNR), a representative arid desert region in Xinjiang
Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), Northwest China. Based on the
frameworks of previous studies (Ding and Yu, 2014; Wang et al.,
2019b), we performed regression analysis between the derived features
of two sources of RS data and ground-measured salinity. The main pur-
poses of this study are: (1) to compare the performance of two RS data
sources (OLI and MSI) in soil salinity monitoring; (2) to investigate the
relationship between SSM and soil salinity; (3) to verify the estimating
performance of Cubist models based on satellite images (OLI and MSI);
and (4) to produce soil salinity maps in the ELWNNR and investigate
soil salinity's spatial distribution with RS information.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area
The Ebinur Lake Wetland National Nature Reserve (ELWNNR) is lo-
cated in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, northwestern China, be-
tween 43°38′-45°52′N, 79°53′-85°02′E (Fig. 1a). Ebinur Lake, the center
of the ELWNNR, is the largest terminal lake in the Junggar Basin (Wang
et al., 2019a). The total area of the ELWNNR is 2670.8 km2 (Fig. 1b).
Ebinur Lake and the adjacent wetlands are a typical ecological degrada-
tion region and an Oasis–Desert System area in Central Asia (Ge et al.,
2016). The ELWNNR is surrounded by mountains on three sides in a rel-
atively landlocked position. It has a typical continental arid climate with
scarce annual precipitation (b200 mm) and intense evaporation
(6.8 × 108 m3/yr). In recent decades, increasing human activities and
consequently reduced surface runoff lead to increasing water salinity
(Wang et al., 2019b). According to the World Reference Base for Soil Re-
sources (WRB), the main soil types are Arenosols, Solonetz, and Solon-
chaks in the ELWNNR (Abuduwaili et al., 2015). Affected by the low
and flat terrain, arid climatic conditions, and shallow groundwater
level, surface aggregated soil salinity is widespread with NaCl as the
prevalent salt minerals in the study area (Wang et al., 2018b). Due to
strong and consistent local winds, fine sand particles with rich salt can
be transported to thousands of kilometers away. This could cause accel-
erated snow and ice melting that leads to secondary soil salinization,
which threatens farming activities and deteriorates ecological environ-
ment in arid and semi-arid regions (Liang et al., 2019).
 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 707 (2020) 136092
Fig. 1. Location of sampling sites in the study area (a: Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region within China; b: Ebinur Lake Basin; c: Ebinur Lake Wetland National Nature Reserve; d and e:
typical landscape photograph of sampling sites (Photograph credit: Jingzhe Wang); f: the sampling schema (4 points) within quadrate).
2.2. Soil sample collection and laboratory analysis
The field soil survey was conducted from August 27th to 31st, 2017.
The survey route of sampling process was designed based on the vehicle
accessibility to the potential sampling sites. According to previous field
survey experience, existing digital soil maps (soil types, textures, and
other characteristics) and primary local land use/cover, we selected a
total of 64 soil sampling quadrats (Fig. 1c–e). Considering the finest spa-
tial resolution of S2 data, we designed the grid size of each quadrat as
10 m × 10 m (Fig. 1f) (Gholizadeh et al., 2018; Taghadosi et al., 2019).
At each sampling point, four topsoil samples were collected and
mixed (from 0 to 20 cm) using a soil drill. In the meantime, a portable
GPS (UniStrong G120, positioning accuracy ≤5 m) was used to record
the geographic locations. Although the positioning accuracy level of
the GPS unit was not ideal, it was enough to provide reasonable loca-
tional alignment between the sampling quadrats and remote sensing
image pixels (since 5 m is 0.5-pixel size of a 10 m resolution image).
All soil samples were properly sealed, labeled, and transported to the
laboratory to measure their main physicochemical attributes. The sam-
ples were fully air-dried and passed through a 2 mm sieve to remove
non-soil materials. We measured the SSM using oven-dried method
(105 °C incubator, 48 h). Based on the prepared adequate soil leachate
at 1:5 soil:water ratio, soil electrical conductivity was determined
using a digital multiparameter measuring apparatus (Multi 3420 Set B,
WTW GmbH, Germany) at room temperature (25 °C).
2.3. Remote sensing data acquisition and pre-processing
Temporal dense Landsat data with a 16-day revisiting period pro-
vides quality geo-information time series data, especially for soil salinity
mapping (Fan et al., 2016; Metternicht and Zinck, 2003; Scudiero et al.,
3
2015). The launch of the Sentinel-2, which is an essential part of Global
Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), offers new perspec-
tives for earth observations (Drusch et al., 2012). MSI data shares many
technical features of the existing Landsat series with a more frequent
temporal revisiting frequency of 5 days. The detailed technical specifica-
tions of both OLI and MSI data are available in previous studies and will
not be repeated here (ESA, 2015; Irons et al., 2012; Roy et al., 2014). The
typical characteristics of the imageries are presented in Table S1 and
Fig. S1. To better compare the performance of OLI and MSI datasets
and further reduce uncertainty in soil salinity monitoring, simultaneous
cloud-free RS imageries (OLI and MSI) were captured on 28th August
2017 in this study. These images were collected at no cost from http://
glovis.usgs.gov/. For the acquired OLI L1T imagery, radiation correction
and atmospheric corrections were performed using Fast Line-of-sight
Atmospheric Analysis of Hypercubes (FLAASH) algorithm in the
ENVI® software version 5.3 (Exelis Visual Information Solutions, Boul-
der, CO, USA). Because the MSI L1C data has undergone radiometric cor-
rection, we only conducted atmospheric corrections using Sen2Cor
algorithm in ESA's Sentinel Application Platform (SNAP) package to pro-
duce the Bottom Of Atmosphere (BOA) reflectance values (Clevers and
Gitelson, 2013; Novelli et al., 2016). The pretreated RS imageries were
also geometrically corrected (accuracy: ±0.5 pixels) to reduce error.
Considering the spectral difference between these two datasets, we
only employed spectral bands of Coastal aerosol, Blue, Green, Red, NIR,
SWIR-1, and SWIR-2 which were all resampled to 10 m spatial resolu-
tion for further analysis and comparison (Korhonen, et al., 2017;
Meyer et al., 2019).
Tasseled Cap transformation-derived Wetness (TCW) component
have been used as an effective indictor to assess SSM information
(r = 0.93–0.99) (Han et al., 2019; Musick and Pelletier, 1988). Addition-
ally, the TCW transformation is an effective data dimensionality reduc-
tion approach with minimum information loss (Jin and Sader, 2005;
4 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 707 (2020) 136092
Masoud, 2014). Based on the standard sketch outlined in Baig et al.
(2014) and Nedkov (2017), TCW transformation was applied to the
pretreated RS data. To verify its applicability in the present study, the
correlation between actual SSM and corresponding TCW data were
evaluated and strong correlation was found between the two (r =
0.94). Additionally, we selected many satellite salinity indices based
on published results in previous studies to capture more land surface sa-
linity information (Ding and Yu, 2014; Wang et al., 2019b).
In arid and semi-arid regions, the spectral index is an effective way
to detect soil salinity (Gorji et al., 2017; Peng et al., 2019). Each spectral
index was proposed locally based on specific environmental conditions,
which suggests that the spectral index should not be generalized with-
out considering local conditions (Verstraete and Pinty, 1996). In this
study, we selected and composed commonly used satellite salinity indi-
ces in a hope to generate powerful combination for the construction of
retrieval model (Table 1). Moreover, to exclude non-soil pixels, we
used the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI = (NIR − R)/
(NIR + R)) to exclude water bodies (NDVI b 0) and vegetation cover
(NDVI N 0.3) prior to model calibration (Davis et al., 2019). After the
treatment, only bare soils pixels were considered in the model, which
laid the foundation for the ensuing digital soil mapping.
2.4. Modelling strategy and uncertainty
As a common practice (Wang et al., 2019b), we divided the whole
dataset (n = 64) into the calibration set (40 soil samples, 62.50% of
the whole soil samples) and the validation set (24 soil samples,
37.50% of the whole samples) by means of Kennard-Stone (K\\S) algo-
rithm to ensure the generalization and robustness of the model. For fur-
ther analysis and visualization, all 64 soil samples were partitioned with
commonly used classification scheme of soil salinity (Schoeneberger
et al., 2002): 1) non-saline (0 dS m−1 b EC ≤ 2 dS m−1), 2) very slightly
saline (2 dS dS m−1 b EC ≤ 4 dS m−1), 3) slightly saline (4 dS m−1 b EC ≤ 8
dS m−1), 4) moderately saline (8 dS m−1 b EC ≤ 16 dS m−1), and
5) strongly saline (N16 dS m−1).
To calibrate the quantitative retrieval model of soil salinity, Cubist
model was used in this study. During the past decades, several scholars
applied this method to retrieve soil properties based on multispectral RS
data and considered its estimating performance satisfactory
(Henderson et al., 2005; Homer et al., 2012; Liang et al., 2019). Accord-
ing to the published results in Peng et al. (2019) and Zeraatpisheh et al.
(2019), Cubist is recommended for EC inversion. Cubist is an extension
of Quinlan's M5 model tree (Quinlan, 1992, 1993). Specifically, this algo-
rithm is a rule-based predictive model consisting of a set of rules, each
rule is associated with a corresponding multiple linear regression
model (Ma et al., 2017; Yu and Wu, 2006). A specific predictive model
will be chosen based on the most appropriate rule. In general, Cubist
Table 1
Employed satellite salinity indices and their calculation formulas.
Spectral index Acronym Formula
Tasseled cap wetness TCW 0.1509 × B + 0.1973 × G + 0.3273 × R + 0.3406 × NIR − 0.7112 × SWIR-1 − 0.4573 × SWIR-2 (Baig et al., 2014)
Intensity index 1 Int1 (G + R)/2
Intensity index 2 Int2 (G + R + NIR)/2
Normalized difference salinity NDSI (R − NIR)/(R + NIR)
index
Salinity index I S1 B/R
Salinity index II S2 (B − R)/(B + R)
Salinity index III S3 (G × R)/B
Salinity index V S5 (B × R)/G
Salinity index VI S6 (R × NIR)/G
Salinity index SI (B + R)0.5
Salinity index 1 SI1 (G × R)0.5
Salinity index 2 SI2 [(G)2 + (R)2 + (NIR)2]0.5
Salinity index 3 SI3 [(R)2 + (G)2)]0.5
Detailed wavelengths of the used bands: for OLI data, B = B2 (483 nm), G = B3 (561 nm), R = B4 (655 nm), NIR = B5 (865 nm), SWIR-1 = B6 (1609 nm), SWIR-2 = B7 (2201 nm); for
MSI data, B = B2 (490 nm), G = B3 (560 nm), R = B4 (655 nm), NIR = B5 (842 nm), SWIR-1 = B6 (1610 nm), SWIR-2 = B7 (2190 nm).
model consists of a set of piecewise multivariate linear models to collec-
tively solve the nonlinear problems properly. Cubist model has received
much attention lately because of its advantages comparing to simple
linear regression, such as simple and effective rules, short training
time, and satisfactory performance in solving high-dimensional prob-
lems (Noi et al., 2017; Peng et al., 2019). Although commonly the
criteria for selecting effective parameters are based on the results of cor-
relation test with confidence level of 0.01 (Hong et al., 2019; Peng et al.,
2019; Wang et al., 2018c), to take full advantage of Cubist model, all
spectral covariates will be applied during model calibration. Addition-
ally, the particular subsets of the input space are automatically selected
(Yu and Wu, 2006). Considering the satisfactory self-training perfor-
mance of Cubist model, we used the default values in the configuration
when calibrating our model.
Considering the small sample size, we also applied the bootstrap
strategy to assess the uncertainty of the Cubist estimations (Efron and
Tibshirani, 1994). The bootstrap measured the accuracy of a estimation
by generating different Cubist models from different realizations of the
data (McBratney et al., 2006). In this study, training (n = 200) was per-
formed on each bootstrap sample, thus we had 200 Cubist models for
soil salinity.
2.5. Statistical analysis
In this study, statistical calculation, drawing and Pearson correlation
analysis were performed using packages of Cubist (version 0.2.2) and
corrplot (version 0.84) in the R platform (version 3.4.0) (Kuhn et al.,
2018; R Development Core Team, 2018; Wei et al., 2017). Linear regres-
sion was implemented using Origin 2018b (OriginLab Corp.,
Northhampton, MA, USA), which was aimed to analyze the relation-
ships between the soil salinity and MSI-derived surface soil moisture.
Furthermore, as recommended by Li et al., 2015, some basic measures
were used for model evaluation: (1) the coefficients of determination
(R2), (2) root mean square errors (RMSE), (3) normalized root mean
square errors (NRMSE) considering the wide range of soil salinity in
the study area, (4) ratio of performance to deviation (RPD) and
(5) ratio of performance to interquartile distance (RPIQ). Compared to
RPD, RPIQ is a more objective and reasonable performance index espe-
cially for the soil-sample sets with non-normal distribution (Bellon-
Maurel and McBratney, 2011; Nocita et al., 2014). For the purposes of
comparison with previous studies, the RPD was still kept in this study.
To facilitate the illustration of the estimating results, we used the
RPIQ-level ranking system outlined in (Ludwig et al., 2017) and (Hong
et al., 2019) to describe the models: excellent model (RPIQ ≥ 4.05),
good model (3.37 ≤ RPIQ b 4.05), approximate quantitative model
(2.70 ≤ RPIQ b 3.37), and fair model (2.02 ≤ RPIQ b 2.70). A model
Reference
(Triki Fourati et al.,
2015)
(Khan et al., 2005)
(Khan et al., 2005)
(Douaoui et al., 2006)
 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 707 (2020) 136092
with higher R2 and RPIQ and a lower RMSE is deemed a more appropri-
ate model.
3. Results
3.1. Descriptive statistics
The descriptive statistics for soil salinity for the whole, calibration,
and validation datasets are visualized in Fig. 2. These three datasets
showed relatively high variations. For the whole dataset, the range of
soil salinity varies from 0.15 to 77.90 dS m−1, with a standard deviation
of 22.12 dS m−1. The average salinity levels of selected calibration and
validation datasets are 26.23 dS m−1 and 26.03 dS m−1, respectively.
The data range, standard deviation (S.D.), and coefficient of variation
are similar for all three datasets, which suggests our separation of the
dataset is valid.
3.2. Comparing spectral characteristics between OLI and MSI
In order to detect the signatures of the selected spectral bands, we
selected a total of 6000 random points (excluding the vegetation and
water masks pixels) and conducted the comparison between Landsat-
8 OLI and Sentinel-2 imageries (Fig. 3). The BOA (Bottom of Atmo-
sphere) reflectance values ranging from 0 to 1 make them comparable.
All sub figures in Fig. 3 illustrate that the reflectance values are approx-
imately similar in each corresponding spectral band.
To visualize the relationship between soil samples with different sa-
linity and corresponding reflectivity, we selected five representative soil
samples in different salinity levels to draw the diagram (Fig. 4). Soil
samples with different salinity levels follow very similar shape and am-
plitude of the spectral reflectance curves. In terms of the two different
sensors, non-saline soil and strongly saline soil correspond to the lowest
and highest reflectance, respectively. It serves as the benchmark for the
distinction between different salinity soils based on RS technology. In
addition, the regularity between different salinization levels and the
corresponding spectral feature shows that the MSI data has a slightly
lower reflectivity though within a narrower range than the OLI data.
In this study, the near-unanimous spectral reflectance in OLI and MSI
sensors is the result of simultaneous remote sensing imagery capture.
3.3. Model development and performance evaluation
To examine the sensitivity of RS-derived covariates (spectral bands,
TCW, and satellite salinity indices) to soil salinity, we conducted Pear-
son correlation analysis and build the correlograms (Fig. 5). It could
Fig. 2. Summary statistics of soil salinity for the whole (a), calibration (b) and validation (c) datasets. Note: n, sample number, Min., Minimum, Max., Maximum, S.D., standard deviation,
and C.V., coefficient of variation.
5
help us choose the potential predictive factors for our model. As
shown in Fig. 5, statistically significant correlations were observed be-
tween all 20 covariates generated from the two different sensors and
soil salinity. Three spectral indices, namely NDSI, S1 and S2 failed the
significance test (P b 0.01). Generally, the highest correlations between
covariates and soil salinity were obtained from TCW and Int2. Regarding
the two different datasets, the relationship between SSM and soil salin-
ity was the strongest. In addition, good correlations between seven
spectral bands and soil salinity (including B1, B3 and B4) were observed.
The correlation of EC value with the calculated satellite spectral indices
usually performed better than with individual spectral bands (Fig. 5).
Overall, all correlation coefficients between MSI-derived covariates
and soil salinity were high, and MSI data were more sensitive to local
salt-affected soil than OLI data in the study area (Fig. 5b).
Based on Fig. 5, the original Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI imag-
eries and their derived features (e.g. satellite salinity indices and TCW)
were used as the RS data source (covariates) to estimate salinity.
Using these covariates, we calibrated the Cubist model. The rules of
each Cubist model and corresponding linear regression model were
listed in Table 2. In terms of Landsat data, the highest contribution co-
variate was B1 (81.50%), followed by S6 (49.00%) and B5 (42.50%).
While for Sentinel-2 MSI data, the top three variables with high contri-
butions were SI1 (81.50%), TCW (61.00%), and S1 (42.50%), respectively.
As the results shown in Table 2, covariates with higher contributions
were not always the same, each sub-model formula varied with differ-
ent rules and input variables. Even with the same selected factor, the re-
gression coefficient of each input variable was different, which
demonstrated their variable contribution in the Cubist models.
For the OLI calibration dataset, the R2, RMSE, NRMSE, RPD and RPIQ
were 0.900, 7.390 dS m−1, 9.504%, 3.083 and 4.169, respectively
(Table 3). For the MSI calibration dataset, it had similar variation trends
as those of the OLI calibration dataset, but had higher values of R2
(0.914), RPD (3.345) and RPIQ (4.489) and lower RMSE (6.863 dS
m−1) and NRMSE (8.785%). For the validation dataset, accuracy
changed slightly. The R2 and RPIQ for the OLI dataset were 0.892 and
6.147, respectively, and for the MSI dataset were 0.912 and 6.824, re-
spectively. Other measures followed similar changes (Table 3). For the
Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI datasets, there were some obvious
outliers in the estimations of soil samples with lower EC values (0–10
dS m−1). They were above the 1:1 line, and these datapoints were rela-
tively discrete (Fig. 6). Our results indicated that the combination of MSI
dataset and Cubist model recorded overall better model performance
(Fig. 6b). In addition, although there were different elements that
could cause uncertainty in soil salinity mapping including modelling er-
rors, and parameter uncertainty, the lower values of S.D., RMSE and
6 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 707 (2020) 136092

Fig. 3. Comparison between 6000 random soil pixels of Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI spectral bands (dash lines represent the mean reflectivity). (a): Costal aerosol, (b) Blue, (c) Green,
(d) Red, (e) NIR, (f) SWIR-1 and (g) SWIR-2. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

NRMSE indicated the Cubist model was stable in estimating soil salinity
(Table 4). In this study, the calibrated Cubist model achieves the desired
performance (neither over-fitting nor under-fitting).
3.4. Soil salinity map in the ELWNNR
Based on the RS datasets (Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI) and
corresponding calibrated Cubist models, we generated the soil salinity
distribution maps in the ELWNNR (Fig. 7). The trends in the OLI-
derived and MSI-derived EC spatial distribution maps were similar
with no remarkable difference.
Both maps highlight areas with continuous distribution of saline
soils. The soils with strong salinity degree (N16 dS m−1) are concen-
trated in the areas at low elevations (such as piedmont region, lake
area and nearby shores) in the ELWNNR. These landscapes are mostly
flat with shallow groundwater levels, and strong prevailing local
winds that increase regional evaporation rate. Under these conditions,
salt contents quickly accumulate in soil surface. Affected by the

Fig. 4. Comparison between the Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI spectral bands spectral reflectance of soil samples with different salinity levels: (a) non-saline, (b) very slightly saline,
(c) slightly saline, (d) moderately saline, and (e) strongly saline.
 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 707 (2020) 136092 7

is predominant in this study area. Apart from the additional challenge

caused by resampling techniques and resolution differences in both
spectral and spatial dimension, our results demonstrate that differences
between Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI are distinguishable. MSI
image with finer spatial (and temporal) resolution performs better
than OLI image.
In this study, we obtained the SSM information using Tasseled Cap
transformation-derived wetness (TCW). Using MSI data as an example,
we found statistically significant correlations between measured soil sa-
linity and RS-derived surface soil moisture (TCW) with a Pearson's r of
0.75 (Fig. S2). Soil salinity and SSM were strongly correlated. Under
the effect of dissolution of salt in water, the spatial distribution of SSM
greatly facilitated soil salinity detection (as can be seen by comparing
Figs. 7 and S3).

4. Discussion

4.1. Salinity tracking based on multispectral RS data

Various multispectral sensors use spectral information reflected by

Fig. 5. Correlation coefficients between laboratory-measured soil salinity and remote
sensing derived covariates based on 64 samples. (a): Landsat-8 OLI, (b): Sentinel-2 MSI.
topography and parent material profiles, the soils with EC of 0–4 dS m−1
(non-saline and very slightly saline soil) are mainly distributed in the
north of the study area (Alatao Mountain). The soils with slightly salin-
ity degree (4–8 dS m−1) and moderately salinity degree (8–16 dS m−1)
are concentrated in the Gobi Desert and vicinity.
The OLI data classifies more soil area as strongly saline (N16 dS m−1)
than MSI (Fig. 7b and d). Both maps demonstrate that salt-affected soil
ground targets for the detection of useful geo-information
(Zeraatpisheh et al., 2019). Different spectral characters associated
with target soil with varying salinity degrees also lay the foundation
for topsoil salinity monitoring. Areas with the highest degree of saliniza-
tion were usually covered with white salt crust. That explains the in-
creased spectral reflectivity of soil samples with increased soil salinity
in almost every band (Fig. 4). This makes it possible to use the multi-
spectral bands and their derived spectral indices for topsoil salinity
monitoring and mapping. According to the literature, two commonly
used modelling schemes were summarized: 1) estimating soil salinity
directly using salinity index (Han et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019b);
and 2) estimating soil salinity indirectly using vegetation index
(Allbed and Kumar, 2013; Zhang, et al., 2015). However, the habitat
and tolerance of each vegetation type are quite different. Whether the
vegetation index is considered or not, the vegetation-covered areas
are usually recognized as non-saline soil and slightly saline soil in previ-
ous studies (Ding and Yu, 2014; Hu et al., 2019; Peng et al., 2019). This is
the reason why vegetation cover was masked prior to model calibration
in our study. In addition, the OLI data has less satisfactory results since it
classifies more soil area as strongly saline (N16 dS m−1) than MSI in this
study (Fig. 7b and d). The MSI data with finer spatial resolution reduces
the effects caused by this issue. This might be because of the coarse pixel
size (30 m) of OLI data with more mixed pixels containing multiple end-
elements (Davis et al., 2019).
For monitoring soil salinization, it is essential to take into account
the spectral reflectance of halophyte vegetation, especially in the arid
and semi-arid regions with severe salinization (Scudiero et al., 2015;
Zhang et al., 2015). Meanwhile, vegetation and soil characteristics are
indispensable environmental variables during retrieval model calibra-
tion. However, there is no silver bullet. Each index has its distinctive fea-
ture. The performances of these parameters vary with different

Table 2
Cubist model formulas and corresponding rules for Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI data, respectively.

Sensor Rules Model formula

OLI 1 B1 ≤ 0.1346 & B5 N 0.1845 −52.27774 + 243 Int2

2 B1 ≤ 0.1346 & B5 ≤ 0.1845 −213.5482 + 1407 × B5–94 × B1
3 B1 N 0.1346 & S6 ≤ 0.2593 −766.9279 + 1904 × SI – 1877 × B2–856 × B3–238 × NDSI +289 × B1 + 89× S1–88 × S6 + 25× B5
4 B1 N 0.1346 & S6 N 0.2593 −1346.2274 + 3263 × SI − 4661 × B2 + 466 × S1–799 × B3–222 × NDSI−276 × S6 + 140 × B1
MSI 1 SI1 ≤ 0.1494 −3.8611 + 66 × SI1 + 14 × SI2–15 × SI
TCW ≤ 0.4939 & S1 ≤ 0.7613 &
2 47.6061–381 × SI1 + 191 × B2
SI1 N 0.1494
TCW ≤ 0.4939 & S1 N 0.7613 &
3 25.0080–152 × TCW + 89 S1–25 × SI1 + 26 × B2
SI1 N 0.1494
−1806.0183 + 5757 × SI – 3917 × SI1–1254 × NDSI –
4 TCW N 0.4939
2663 × B1–1399 × S6–566 × TCW + 672 × B7–252 × B2 + 43 × S1
8 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 707 (2020) 136092
Table 3
Accuracy statistics of two calibrated cubist models based on Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI data, respectively.
Data R2 Calibration
RMSE NRMSE RPD
OLI 0.900 7.390 9.504% 3.083
MSI 0.914 6.863 8.785% 3.345
Note: R2, coefficients of determination; RMSE, root mean square error; RPD, ratio of performance to deviation; NRMSE, normalized root mean square errors.
environmental conditions (soil types, soil surface roughness, and vege-
tation coverage). The fundamental reason is that the satellite index is a
qualitative indicator that has congenital defects in the expression of in-
formation (Wang et al., 2019b). More attention should be paid to the
environmental information reflecting the changes of soil properties
such as vegetation cover, phenology and growth.
4.2. Response of SSM to the spatial distribution of soil salinity
The mechanism of salinization is quite complicated, and this specific
phenomenon may be affected by various factors (Ding and Yu, 2014).
The accumulation of salt on the soil surface and soil profile is signifi-
cantly affected by spatiotemporal dynamics of water content. In fact,
multispectral RS data is confined to detect the accumulated salt within
the topsoil. It might not be plausible to discern all potential influencing
factors with reflectance information alone (Ma et al., 2018; Peng et al.,
2019). Therefore, it is crucial to grasp the main factors affecting saliniza-
tion and take full advantages of RS techniques in the accurate expres-
sion of SSM (Han et al., 2019). As illustrated in Table 2, TCW played an
important role in the rules of Cubist model based on MSI data. The sat-
isfied outcomes of Cubist model are results of the various partitioned
sub-sections and corresponding input variables (Liang et al., 2019;
Viscarra Rossel et al., 2019).
In published studies of soil salinity estimation, scholars often paid
limited attention to environmental covariates (Fan et al., 2016; Liang
et al., 2019). For the RS-based monitoring of soil salinization, the moni-
toring accuracy is susceptible to SSM. Different degrees of SSM can
cause the decreasing reflectivity in the visible (VIS) and near-infrared
(NIR) ranges (Lobell and Asner, 2002), which further affects the perfor-
mance of each spectral band and index (Fang et al., 2015).
In fact, soil salinity and SSM are interactive (Han et al., 2019) because
salt contents from groundwater in high salinity areas could easily seep
up to the topsoil. Water-soluble salt often accumulates and crystalizes
in the topsoil (forming white salt crust) after evaporation. Hygroscopic
salts including the sodium salts can absorb atmospheric water and keep
their own moist. The mechanism has been elaborated in (Sanford and
Fig. 6. Scatter plots of laboratory-measured versus estimated soil salinity-derived from Cubist regression models using Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI data, respectively. Black solid line
represents the 1:1 line.
R2 Validation
RPIQ RMSE NRMSE RPD RPIQ
4.169 0.892 7.174 10.243% 3.369 6.147
4.489 0.912 6.462 9.226% 3.400 6.824
Wood, 2001). Besides, transport of salts is consistent with water move-
ment because salts come with the water, and leave with it, too (Masoud
et al., 2019; Reynolds et al., 2007). Additionally, the effect of land surface
temperature is not considered in this study. It is very likely that the ther-
modynamic factor can affect the deposition and distribution of salt
(Ivushkin et al., 2019). However, this effect is more reflected towards
the soil salinity dynamics in time scale. Once we understand the mech-
anism of local salinization, we will consider more potential and valuable
factors. Among them, Temperature Vegetation Dryness Index (TVDI) is
a promising alternative approach for quantitative evaluation of SSM.
This index gives due consideration to the surface temperature and
inversing regional soil moisture with higher precision (Gao et al.,
2011). On such basis, Ensemble Kalman Filter (En-KF) method and
multi-dimensional hydrological model (HYDRUS) can be used to simu-
late local accurate SSM and improve the accuracy of soil salinity estima-
tion further.
4.3. Uncertainty analysis of current study
Uncertainty is a key issue in soil mapping. In this study, we attempt
to compare the estimating performance of Cubist models based on two
satellite images (OLI and MSI). The uncertainty of this study mainly
comes from two sources: one is the uncertainty of relationships be-
tween salt features and RS data; another is the uncertainty when esti-
mating the Cubist model. In this study, topsoil samples were collected
and mixed (from 0 to 20 cm) according to common practice (Peng
et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2018a). However, the captured soil salt infor-
mation by satellite images may be affected by the grain size, organic
content, moisture content, and other soil characteristics. In addition, al-
though radiation correction and atmospheric corrections were per-
formed, the captured spectral information may still be affected by
terrain factors and shadows. Additionally, in this study, our sample
size (n = 64) is relatively small. This may cause potential errors and in-
troduce uncertainty in data analysis. In our future studies, we will at-
tempt to increase our sample size with additional sampling sites and
 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 707 (2020) 136092 9

Table 4
Estimation uncertainty and accuracy using Cubist model based on Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-2 MSI data, respectively.

Items Calibration Validation

OLI MSI OLI MSI

Mean S.D. 6.514 5.682 6.381 6.137

R2 Mean 0.891 0.909 0.886 0.89
Range 0.469–1 0.534–1 0.526–1 0.438–1
RMSE Mean 6.523 5.693 6.381 6.133
Range 0.073–15.870 0.110–14.847 0.118–15.586 0.011–16.529
NRMSE Mean 8.895% 7.76% 9.495% 7.102%
Range 0.117%–20.418% 0.143%–19.101% 0.003%–22.246% 0.016%–20.590%
RPD Mean 5.452 6.992 5.669 14.03
Range 1.954–251.132 1.026–214.805 1.065–148.885 1.342–165.638
RPIQ Mean 9.623 11.913 9.215 21.796
Range 2.064–446.344 2.101–339.293 2.041–202.546 2.276–245.421

Note: S.D., standard deviation; R2, coefficients of determination; RMSE, root mean square error; RPD, ratio of performance to deviation; NRMSE, normalized root mean square errors.

advanced sampling strategies to reduce uncertainty and further make
more solid predictions.
From Table 3 we see that the RMSE and NRMSE of Sentinel-2 MSI
data were 6.462 dS m−1 and 9.226%, respectively. The relatively high
RMSE value is mainly caused by the wide range of soil salinity (from
0.15 to 77.90 dS m−1) in the study area coupled with the smaller
sample size. Bootstrap approach was conducted to validate the un-
certainty of Cubist model. The bagging results validated the high ac-
curacy and low uncertainty of calibrated Cubist model. The model
performance to estimate soil salinity were summarized in Table 4
in terms of the means and standard deviations of R2, RMSE, NRMSE,
RPD and RPIQ from 200 iterations. In this study, the selection of op-
timal solution was not only based on the estimating accuracy, but
also the fitting performance. In other words, our results suggest
that the Cubist model is neither over-fitting nor under-fitting (less
uncertainty) and also provides ideal accuracy. Cubist model takes a
divide-and-conquer strategy to process the input variables and
allow different sub models to capture the potential linearity in differ-
ent parts of the predictor variable space. Because of the Cubist
model's capability of self-adaptation, self-organization, and effective
data mining strategy, this specific method is suitable for soil salinity
estimation that is likely influenced by a variety of complex factors.
Machine learning models are often criticized as black box models,
but our study with the Cubist approach is clearly transparent with
its tree-like model structure with desired accuracy as seen in previ-
ous studies (Liang et al., 2019; Peng et al., 2019).
It should be noted that there are still limitations in using only one
satellite dataset. Image fusion across spatial, temporal and spectral do-
mains with multiple satellites could maximize the strengths of individ-
ual satellite data (Metternicht and Zinck, 2003; Ryu et al., 2019). In this
context, some existed platforms including the Google Earth Engine may
offer new perspectives for the estimations of soil properties (Gorelick
et al., 2017). Finally, it is crucial to review the developed classical theo-
ries and integrate them into emerging big data analysis to understand
the mechanism of soil salinization better.
5. Conclusion
In this study, we compared the spectral characteristics between OLI
and MSI images and investigated soil salinity predictive performance
using Cubist models with two different images (OLI and MSI) in an

Fig. 7. Distribution maps of soil salinity derived from Cubist models based on Landsat-8 OLI (a) and Sentinel-2 MSI (c) data, respectively. (b) and (d) represent a highlighted zone to
illustrate detailed soil salinity information.
10 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 707 (2020) 136092
arid desert region, Ebinur Lake Wetland National Nature Reserve. The
main results are as follows:
(1) The regularity between different salinization levels and the cor-
responding spectral features shows that the MSI data has a
slightly lower reflectivity though within a narrower range.
(2) Overall, all correlation coefficients between MSI-derived covari-
ates and soil salinity are higher than OLI-derived covariates,
and MSI data are more sensitive to local salt-affected soil than
OLI data in the study area. For both sensors, the highest correla-
tions between covariates and soil salinity are obtained from
TCW and Int2.
(3) The introduction of TCW generates satisfactory estimating per-
formance. Compared with OLI dataset, the combination of MSI
dataset and Cubist model yields overall better model perfor-
mance and accuracy measures (R2 = 0.912, RMSE = 6.462 dS
m−1, NRMSE = 9.226%, RPD = 3.400 and RPIQ = 6.824, respec-
tively).
(4) Our results demonstrate that differences between Landsat-8 OLI
and Sentinel-2 MSI are distinguishable. Generally, MSI image
with finer spatial resolution outperforms OLI data when it is
used for soil salt monitoring. The results of the current study
can help researchers understand the mechanism of soil saliniza-
tion better and lay the foundation for the soil salinization sce-
nario simulation with long time series RS data in arid and semi-
arid regions.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Mr. Xuankai Ma and Mr. Zhenhua Zhang
for helping in providing helpful suggestions. We are especially grateful
to the anonymous reviewers and editors for appraising our manuscript
and for offering instructive comments. This study was supported by the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (41890854, 41961059,
41771470, 41871031, and 31860111). The funders had no role in study
design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation
of the manuscript.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.136092.
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