Hyperspectral analysis of soil polluted with four types of hydrocarbons

In this study, a high spectral resolution GER-2600 spectroradiometer was used to obtain the spectral data of soil samples that were polluted with four different types of petroleum–hydrocarbons products: Diesel, Gasoline, Crude Oil and Fuel Oil. The polluted soil samples were prepared in the laboratory at five concentrations levels: unpolluted soil, 2500, 100,000, 250,000 ppm and pure pollutant. Spectral data were pre-processed and then analysed with various approaches: Principal Components Transformation and ANOVA, Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM), Hydrocarbon Index (HI) and Spectral Mixture Analysis (SMA). The results showed that it was possible to determine the different spectral response between clean soil and some of the polluted soils: crude oil at concentrations higher than 100,000 ppm were the easiest to recognize; while samples polluted with gasoline at concentrations below 250,000 ppm were the most difficult to distinguish from non-polluted samples.