USE OF AERIAL IMAGES TAKEN BY DRONES FOR SURVEY OF SOILS OF AKARKOF AREA LOCATED NORTH WEST OF BAGHDAD IN IRAQ

Abstract

For the purpose of developing and testing new remote sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or what is known as (Drones), have been selected and equipped with a BGR camera of up to 20 megapixels with a resolution 4K photography for conducting soil surveys. The Akarkof area, which is located northwest of Baghdad in the Abu Ghraib district, about 25 km North West from the city center of Baghdad, has an area of 650 hectares and is confined between the two latitude 33° 20 ́35and 33° 21 ́40 and the longitude 44° 12 ́33 and 44° 11 ́30, the elevation of the study area ranges from 23-29 meters above sea level. In addition to using software to process these images and create mosaics for them. The comparison of spatial accuracy was based on the spatial distinction and the pixel size between the aerial and the satellite images. The satellite images obtained an accuracy about 10 m meters, while the drone imaging gave a 4-centimeter accuracy in addition to their supervised and unsupervised classification and wave classification, which It is based on the visible spectrum only to classify farmland and soil surface. Seven soil pedions were identified for the largest and most frequent areas of the Series, where 10 Series differing in area and frequency were diagnosed. The isolation of the image units based on the eight characteristics in the interpretation of aerial images, namely color, shape, size, pattern, texture, shadows, link and location with the types of soil Series, and a final map of the study area was created in the traditional way and IDW. The results reflect and confirm the possibility of using drone images for soil management, mapping, and agricultural field development.