Systematic discrimination of irrigation and upheaval associated salinity using multitemporal SAR data

Highlights: • The total soil EC was estimated by simulating dielectric loss in the SAR Imageries. • The research was executed for the dry and wet spells of similar mean temperature. • The irrigation-induced salinity was discriminated from the upheaval-associated salinity. • The irrigation-induced salinity was the primary cause of the dynamic trend of vegetation. The increasing salinization in the soil profile by irrigation water and groundwater upheaval is a widespread issue and considered as a major threat to agricultural production in arid and semi-arid regions. The present study aimed to propose a systematic SAR simulation involving the imaginary part of dielectric constant measurements of two consecutive seasons (dry and wet) to quantify and discriminate the irrigation-induced and upheaval-associated salinity from total salinity levels and investigate its impact on crop growth. The Sentinel-1 data of C-band frequency (5.36 GHz) acquired for both the dry and wet spells from 2015 to 2019 was instrumental in the present study. The total soil EC (Electrical Conductivity) was quantified from the imaginary part of dielectric constant (ε″) using semi-empirical microwave simulation "DSDM-SS". Irrigation-induced salinity (ε_Irrigation″) and upheaval-associated salinity (ε_Upheaval″) were extracted from ε″ by proposing a site-, and climatic-specific novel model. The ε_Upheaval″ and ε_Irrigation″ have shown promising statistical significance with the in-situ soil EC (R² = 0.89, p = 2 = 0.85, p = θ = −0.87) than the upheaval process. The study revealed that crop failure in the dry season was provoked by osmotic stress and waterlogging conditions.