Digital Soil Assessments and Beyond Minasny, Malone & McBratney (eds) 2012 Taylor & Francis Group,

p, London, ISBN 978-0-415-62155-7

Exploring short-term soil landscape formation in the Hunter Valley, NSW, using gamma ray spectrometry
U. Stockmann, B. Minasny & Alex. B. McBratney
Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Sydney, Australia

G.R. Hancock & G.R. Willgoose

School of Environmental and Life Sciences, The University of Newcastle, Australia

ABSTRACT: In recent years proximal soil sensing techniques have been applied to investigate the spatial distribution of soil properties as well as the patterns of soil deposition in the landscape. Here, we present the results of a soil survey conducted in a small catchment in the Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia, which was used to investigate spatial variability in the processes of short-term soil landscape formation in the study region. A vehicle-borne passive gamma-ray spectrometer was employed to explore at a high resolution the distribution of radioactive isotopes occurring naturally (40K, 238U-series, 232Th-series) and artificially produced in the soil (137Cs). Our results show that spatial patterns determined from gamma emissions from natural and artificially produced radio-isotopes in the soil do not differ as much as expected. We therefore came to the conclusion that normalizing algorithms such as baseline correction of the spectra need to be explored further, and that point data are required to validate the derived maps. From here, soil samples will be taken along toposequences to determine the concentration of the fallout radionuclide 137Cs, to better assess soil erosion and soil deposition patterns using this environmental tracer. These observations together with a high resolution digital elevation model will improve our understanding of how the landscape formed or changed in the short-term. Eventually, the collected data will give us a clear picture on the function and the response of managed soil systems to a changing environment. 1 INTRODUCTION hillslope transects (e.g., see reviews by Mabit et al., 2008; Zapata, 2003). The detection of radioactive isotopes with the help of passive gamma ray spectrometers is based on the principle that every gamma ray photon has a discrete energy window which is characteristic of the source isotope (Minty et al., 1998). In general, only the radio-isotopes of potassium (40K), uranium (238U-series) and thorium (232Th-series) that occur naturally in the soil produce high-energy gammarays with intensities sufficient enough to be applicable for gamma-ray mapping (IAEA, 2003). Gammaray mapping therefore reflects the geochemical variation of these elements in the upper centimeters of the Earths surface. In soil surveying, the amount of K, U and Th in the upper soil profile is most likely related to the type of parent material the soils studied have originated from during pedogenesis (Dickson and Scott, 1997). Nevertheless, radiometric surveys may also offer the prospect to capture the spatial distribution of the man-made radionuclide 137Cs by monitoring the energy window centered on its energy peak of 662 keV. The amount of 137Cs in surface soils is caused predominantly by wet

Over the years proximal soil sensing techniques have been used in precision agriculture and digital soil mapping to identify and to map spatial variations of soil properties and therefore to make assumptions about the quality of soils in the studied landscape (see reviews by Adamchuk et al., 2004; McBratney et al., 2003; McBratney et al., 2011; Viscarra Rossel et al., 2011). One of the big advantages of using proximal soil-sensing is that relatively large study areas can be surveyed at a high resolution reasonably quickly at low costs. Recently, these proximal soil sensing techniques have also been applied to make inferences about the patterns of short-term soil erosion and deposition in the landscape. More precisely, it has been shown that passive gamma ray spectrometers can potentially be used to detect the spatial distribution of the artificially produced fallout radionuclide 137Cs in the landscape studied (i.e., Scheib and Beamish, 2010). 137Cs has been used widely as an environmental tracer to explore soil erosion and sediment transport in agricultural and natural environments, making use of point data along

77

deposition and minor dry deposition after nuclear fallout (Clark and Smith, 1988). In the Southern Hemisphere this occurrence can be mostly attributed to the fallout time between the mid 1950s and early 1960s, sourced from thermonuclear weapons testing (Walling et al., 1995). The redistribution of 137 Cs in the surface soil is believed to be a result of erosion, transport and deposition of soil particles that occurred after the main period of atmospheric distribution due to its strong binding to the mineral soil (Zapata, 2003). Here, we conducted a field study with a vehicleborne passive gamma spectrometer at a catchment in the Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia, to investigate the potential of using radiometric mapping to improve the spatial capture of short-term soil landscape formation. As indicated, the resulting gamma-ray spectrum is predominantly influenced by the soils mineralogy as well as particle size, however, attenuating effects of soil moisture content and soil bulk density also have to be taken into consideration (Viscarra Rossel et al., 2007). To overcome the limitations of single-sensor data interpretation, the complementary use of soil sensing instruments has been recommended to better interpret resulting spatial patterns (e.g., Wong et al., 2010). Therefore, mostly to identify soil moisture related patterns that could mask the radiometrics data derived from the gammaray spectrometer, we used this proximal soil sensor in conjunction with an electromagnetic induction instrument (EMI). EMI devices measure terrain conductivity through electromagnetic induction of currents into the ground and estimation of the generated magnetic field strength (McNeill, 1992). The soils electrical conductivity is influenced by soil porosity, moisture content, salinity, temperature and the amount and composition of colloids (McNeill, 1980).

shale, limestone and volcanic rocks (Kovac and Lawrie, 1991). The soils found in the study area are dominated by Red Dermosols, followed by Brown, Black and Grey Dermosols according to the Australian Soil Classification system (Isbell et al., 1997). A small number of Brown Vertosols and Supracalcic Calcarosols are also present. 2.2 Proximal soil sensing survey using the gamma-ray spectrometer and the apparent electrical conductivity sensor The radiometric survey was carried out using a vehicle-borne RSX-1 gamma detector which consists of a 4 liter (256 cu in) Sodium-Iodide (NaI) crystal (Radiation Solutions Inc., Mississauga, Ontario, Canada). Positional data were provided by an integrated GPS (Timble). The gamma spectrometer records a spectrum every second using 1024 channels (3 keV wide, starting with 0 keV). These raw radiometrics data were logged by the instruments integrated console (RS-701). The gamma spectrometer was mounted to the front tray of a John Deere Gator six-wheel-drive mode field vehicle (Figure 1). Apparent soil electrical conductivity (ECa) was measured using an electromagnetic induction instrument, the DUALEM-421 (Dualem Inc., Milton, Ontario, Canada). The instrument operates at a single frequency of about 9 kHz and takes readings at multiple coil spacings (4, 2 and 1 m) and orientations (horizontal co-planar HCP and perpendicular arrays PRP). Thus, this type of EMI instrument enables terrain conductivity to be measured simultaneously to a total of 6 depths (1.6, 0.5, 3.2, 1.0, 6.4, 2.0 m). The DUALEM-421 data stream was recorded, together with positioning information from an Omnistar High Precision DGPS (accuracy of 10 cm, 2RMS), using a customized data logger (GeoScout GLS-400, Holland Scientific, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA). The DUALEM-421 was mounted on a plastic sled which was pulled by the field vehicle (Figure 1). The elevation data logged with the Omnistar HP DGPS were used further to derive a high resolution digital elevation model of the study area.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

2.1 Characterization of the field site Data collection was conducted over 3 consecutive days at a small catchment in the region of Pokolbin in the lower Hunter Valley in New South Wales, Australia. This region has a relatively long wine-producing history, first established in the 1840s (Loughran et al., 2000). The study site comprises of three properties, with a total area of approximately 140 ha (centered on 151.29E, 32.76S) with vineyards and pastures as the predominant landuse. The soil landscape of the study site resulted from a wide-ranging lithology of parent rocks including lithic sandstone, siltstone, mudstone,

Figure 1.

Field vehicle and instrument setup.

78

The field vehicle was driven at a speed of approximately 10 km h1 with 15 m and 30 m line spacing (Figure 2), following a vehicle guidance system (Raven Industries, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA). This vehicle and instruments setup provided continuous and synchronized real-time field measurements. 2.3 Proximal soil sensing data processing Spatial maps showing the radiometrics data were derived using the regions of interest (ROI of the total count, potassium, uranium and thorium) computed by the integrated software of the gamma spectrometer (RadAssist, Version 3.13, Radiation Solutions Inc.) as well as the hyperspectral data consisting of 1024 channels (Figure 3, Table 1). The hyperspectral raw data were used to determine the regions of interest for 137Cs and 134Cs that are not part of the standard energy windows monitored. Processing of the raw radiometrics data involved kriging of the raw gamma-ray spectral data (1024 channels, as well as the ROIs) onto a 10 m wide grid using block kriging with differing block sizes and local variograms and the interpolation software VESPER (Minasny et al., 2006), to reduce the signal-to noise ratio of the spectra, as demonstrated in Viscarra Rossel et al. (2007). Spatial smoothing of the spectra was followed by

Table 1. Standard gamma-ray energy windows recommended for natural and artificial radioelement mapping (after IAEA, 2003). Energy window Total count Potassium Uranium Thorium 137 Caesium 134 Caesium Energy range (MeV) 0.4002.810 1.3701.570 1.6601.860 2.4102.810 0.6120.712 0.7460.846 Corresponding channels (ROI) 137937 457523 553620 803937 205237 250282

spectral smoothing, applying the Savitzky-Golay filter with the open software R (Signal developers, 2011). Furthermore, potential baseline effects were explored by computing the first derivative of each spectrum as well as normalizing the spectra by calculation of the standard normal variate (SNV) across the entire spectrum, for each location of the 10 10 m grid. Spatial maps displaying the soils electrical conductivity as well as elevation information at a high resolution were also produced using the software VESPER, by kriging the logged data onto a 10 m grid using local variograms. 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Spectral smoothing of the radiometrics data Various processing of the raw spectral data was performed to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the initial spectrum (Figure 4a). As seen in Figure 4b and 4c the best smoothing results were achieved by block kriging (10 m 10 m) of the raw spectral data at each location, followed by applying the Savitzky-Golay-filter (with a filter length of 21) and the 1st derivative to the entire spectrum. From here, different baseline corrections as well as energy peak determinations will need to be explored that will result in better understanding of the spatial distribution of the radiometrics data. These will be applied to the entire spectrum as well as the total count only to investigate the influence on data processing of including the regions of the spectra that do not contain information relevant for gamma-ray emissions. 3.2 Spatial maps derived from proximal soil sensors
Figure 3. Gamma-ray spectrum showing the positions of the energy windows (regions of interest, ROI) of radioactive elements (after IAEA, 2003).

Figure 2.

Line spacing of 30 m.

3.2.1 Spatial distribution of radioactive isotopes occurring naturally in the soil As shown in Figure 5, gamma-ray emissions from 40K change across the survey area. Potential

79

Figure 4. Spectrum of (a) the raw spectral data, (b) the kriged spectrum, (c) the kriged spectrum followed by smoothing applying the Savitzky-Golay-filter, and (d) the first derivative.

Figure 6. Apparent electrical conductivity of the surface soil measured by the DUALEM-421 (mS m1).

Figure 5. Gamma-ray emission from 40K (spatially smoothed using kriging, as well as smoothed using the Savitzky-Golay-filter).

Figure 7. area.

High resolution elevation map of the study

dependences of this variation based on changes in soil moisture were ruled out by spatial maps of the soils electrical conductivity which is highly influenced by soil moisture. As seen in Figure 6, surface soil (top 30 cm) ECa responses show a different spatial pattern. ECa responses appear to be related to changes in soil moisture, mainly depending on terrain parameters, with uphill positions being characterized by low ECa readings compared to higher readings in downhill positions (refer to Figure 7 which displays the high resolution elevation map of the study area). This pattern following natural drainage pathways was expected. However, the top-of-hill position in the centre of the survey area is characterized by high ECa values which do not concur with a natural pattern. Most likely, these readings are caused by irrigation of the vineyards that are located in this position of the landscape. Following interpretations of the ECa readings, it was therefore concluded that variations in gamma ray emissions are most likely related to differences in soil properties, i.e., soil texture and clay mineralogy. Accordingly, high gamma readings (40K > 40 cps) reflect the occurrence of soil types

with topsoil clay contents of more than 45% in the area. Inferences about topsoil clay contents were made using point samples which were taken along toposequences from a previous study. However, overall, the partitioning of the survey area into vineyards and pasture appears to be well structured, following the knowledge of the soil and landscape parameters and therefore the quality of the soil. 3.2.2 Spatial distribution of artificially produced radioactive isotopes in the soil We investigated whether a spatial distribution of the artificially produced radioisotope 137Cs can be estimated from ground-based gamma-ray surveys. However, the spatial distribution of gamma-ray emissions derived from the ROI for 137Cs is very similar to the ROI of the radioisotopes occurring naturally in the soil, particularly 40K (refer to Figure 5 and Figure 8). Furthermore, as demonstrated in Figure 9, spatial patterns of the distribution of 137Cs are not significantly different when correcting the spectra for potential baseline effects that can interfere with spectral data. The similarity in the ROI of 137Cs and 40K might be related to the clay content of the surface soils. As mentioned,

80

employing the landform evolution model SIBERIA (Willgoose, 2005). In SIBERIA overland sediment flow is modelled as seen in equation (1) and used to estimate the long term erosion rate. qs = b1qm1Sn1 (1)

Figure 8. Gamma-ray emission derived from the energy window of 137Cs (spatially smoothed using kriging, as well as smoothed using the Savitzky-Golay filter).

Figure 9. Gamma-ray emission derived from the energy window of 137Cs (spatially smoothed using kriging, as well as smoothed using the Savitzky-Golay filter and the first derivative of each spectrum).
137

Cs has a strong affinity to clay particles (Zapata, 2003) and it has been shown that the ROI of 40 K correlates well with the clay content of soils (Wilford et al., 1997). We therefore concluded that vehicle-borne gamma-ray emissions cannot be used readily for deriving maps of the spatial distribution of the artificially produced fallout radionuclide 137Cs, at our study site. Further manipulation of the spectral data is required and point data are needed to verify the derived maps. 3.3 Comparison of radiometrics and electrical conductivity data with topographic indices Covariates, i.e., terrain parameters, were derived using the open GIS software SAGA. However, no significant correlation between these and the radiometrics data was found, indicating that the gamma-ray emissions do not relate to the current topography of the study area. 3.4 Prediction of landform evolution at the study site using SIBERIA The derived high resolution digital elevation model (DEM) was used to predict soil landscape patterns,

where q is the discharge per unit width, S is the slope in the direction of flow, b1 is the rate of sediment/soil transport as a function of grain size, vegetation cover and landuse, and m1/n1 are erosion parameters in the fluvial transport model (Saco et al., 2006). Erosion parameters m1 and n1 of 1.55 and 2, respectively, were determined and calibrated from the area-slope relationship of the DEM data. A value of 0.002 for the erosion parameter b1 was used based on regional estimations (e.g., Loughran et al., 2000). Calculated erosion parameters are of reasonable value and match what one would expect from a site with a history of vineyard production and pasture. Model predictions provided an erosion rate of approximately 5 m3 ha1 yr1 which corresponds to 710 t ha1 yr1 depending on the bulk density of the soil. These predictions seem to be reasonable for this environment. A soil loss on viticulture study in the Pokolbin region conducted by Loughran et al. (2000) using measurement of 137 Cs along transects found average soil loss from vineyards and grazed pasture to be 18 t ha1 and 0.79 t ha1, respectively. Furthermore, landform evolution was simulated over a period of 100 years, based on processes of runoff and erosion, to ultimately derive the erosion/ deposition pattern shown in Figure 10 (that corresponds to the difference of the 100 years and 0 year output derived by SIBERIA). Subsequently, a multivariate analysis (simple linear correlation) was performed to identify potential relationships between the derived soil erosion/deposition pattern and the derived region of interest for 137Cs. However, no significant relationship was found between these variables.

Figure 10. Erosion and deposition patterns derived for the study area, employing SIBERIA.

81

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK

Based on the spatial distribution of gamma-ray emissions from 40K and 137Cs, soil samples will be taken along toposequences to determine the concentration of the fallout radionuclide 137Cs in the laboratory. These will be used to validate the produced maps and to derive an average soil erosion rate to see how well model predictions correlate with real world data. This will improve the assessment of soil erosion and soil deposition patterns using this environmental tracer. Subsequently, these observations together with a high resolution digital elevation model will enable better understanding of how the landscape formed or changed in the short-term. Eventually, the collected data will give us a clear picture on the function and the response of managed soil systems to a changing environment. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank John Triantafilis for providing the EMI sensor (DUALEM-421) used in this study. REFERENCES
Adamchuk, V.I., Hummel, J.W., Morgan, M.T. & Upadhyaya, S.K. 2004. On-the-go soil sensors for precision agriculture. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 44(1): 7191. Clark, M.J. & Smith, F.B. 1988. Wet and dry deposition of Chernobyl releases. Nature 332(6161): 245249. Dickson, B.L. & Scott, K.M. 1997. Interpretation of aerial gamma-ray surveys: adding the geochemical factors. AGSO Journal of Australian Geology and Geophysics 17(2): 187200. Isbell, R.F., McDonald, W.S. & Ashton, L.J. 1997. Concepts and Rationale of the Australian Soil Classification. ACLEP, CSIRO Land and Water, Canberra. Kovac, M. & Lawrie, J.W. 1991. Soil Landscapes of the Singleton 1:250.000 Sheet. Soil Conservation Service of NSW. Sydney. Loughran, R.J., Elliott, G.L., Maliszewski, L.T. & Campbell, B.L. 2000. Soil loss and viticulture at Pokolbin, New South Wales, Australia. IAHS Publications 261: 141152. Mabit, L., Benmansour, M. & Walling, D.E. 2008. Comparative advantages and limitations of the fallout radionuclides 137Cs, 210Pbex and 7Be for assessing soil erosion and sedimentation. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 99: 17991807. McBratney, A.B., Mendonca Santos, M.L. & Minasny, B. 2003. On digital soil mapping. Geoderma 117(12): 352. McBratney, A.B., Minasny, B. & Whelan, B.M. 2011. Defining proximal soil sensing. 2nd Global workshop Proximal soil sensing, Montreal, Canada.

McNeill, J.D. 1980. Electrical conductivity of soils and rocks. Technical Note TN-5 Geonics Limited, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. McNeill, J.D. 1992. Rapid, accurate mapping of soil salinity by electromagnetic ground conductivity meters. In: G.C. Topp, W.D. Reynolds, R.E. Green (Eds.), Advances in measurement of soil physical properties: Bringing theory into practice: pp. 209229. Soil Science Society of America Special Publication, Madison. Minasny, B., McBratney, A.B. & Whelan, B.M. 2006. VESPER, Version 1.6. Australian Centre for Precision Agriculture, http://sydney.edu.au/agriculture/pal/ software/vesper.shtml. Minty, B.R.S., McFadden, P. & Kennett, B.L.N. 1998. Multichannel processing for airborne gamma-ray spectrometry. Geophysics 63(6): 19711985. Saco, P.M., Willgoose, G.R. & Hancock, G.R. 2006. Spatial organization of soil depths using a landform evolution model. Journal of Geophysical Research 111(F2): F02016. Scheib, C. & Beamish, D. 2010. High spatial resolution observations of 137Cs in northern Britain and Ireland from airborne geophysical survey. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 101(9): 670680. Signal developers 2011. Signal: Signal processing. URL: http://r-forge.r-project.org/projects/signal/ Viscarra Rossel, R.A., Adamchuk, V.I., Sudduth, K.A., McKenzie, N.J. & Lobsey, C. 2011. Proximal Soil Sensing: An Effective Approach for Soil Measurements in Space and Time. Advances in Agronomy 113: 243291. Viscarra Rossel, R.A., Taylor, H.J. & McBratney, A.B. 2007. Multivariate calibration of hyperspectral -ray energy spectra for proximal soil sensing. European Journal of Soil Science 58(1): 343353. Walling, D.E., He, Q. & Quine, T.A. 1995. Use of caesium-137 and lead-210 as tracers in soil erosion investigations. In: C. Leibundgut (Ed.), Tracer Technologies for Hydrological Systems (Proceedings of a Boulder Symposium, July 1995). IAHS Publications, pp. 163172. Wilford, J.R., Bierwirth, P.N. & Craig, M.A. 1997. Application of airborne gamma-ray spectrometry in soil/regolith mapping and applied geomorphology. AGSO Journal of Australian Geology and Geophysics 17(2): 201216. Willgoose, G.R. 2005. User manual for SIBERIA, Telluric Res., Scone, N. S. W., Australia. (Available at http:// www.telluricresearch.com/siberia-homepage.html). Wong, M.T.F., Wittwer, K., Oliver, Y.M. & Robertson, M.J. 2010. Use of EM38 and gamma ray spectrometry as complementary sensors for highresolution soil property mapping. In: R.A. Viscarra Rossel, A.B. McBratney, B. Minasny (Eds.), Proximal soil sensing: pp. 343349. Springer, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York. Zapata, F. 2003. The use of environmental radionuclides as tracers in soil erosion and sedimentation investigations: recent advances and future developments. Soil & Tillage Research 69: 313.

82