A statistical optical model for light reflection and penetration through sand

Abstract

The aggregate soil reflectance is an important parameter in remote sensing. It was found by one of the authors (A.N. Patel) that soil reflectance initially decreases with an increase in moisture content and subsequently.increases with higher moisture content. The present work embodies an attempt to analyse this effect and explain its physics. A new concept of cut-off thickness is evolved to interpret optical characteristics of sand as a multi-layer process. A statistical phenomenological model is developed to account for the observed dependence of the aggregate reflectance of sand and the cut-off thickness of various fractions of sand. The presence of moisture is found to affect the optical characteristics in two different ways. The model provides a way to estimate aggregate reflectance and particle reflectance from measurements to cut-off thickness.