Monitoring soil properties using enmap spaceborne imaging spectroscopy mission

The Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) is a new spaceborne German hyperspectral satellite mission, whose primary goal is to generate accurate information on the state and evolution of the Earth ' s ecosystems. The core themes of EnMAP are monitoring environmental changes, ecosystem responses to human activities, and management of natural resources such as soils and minerals. EnMAP started on 1st April 2022 and is now in operational phase since over six months, with strong expectations regarding data quality and impact on soil research. In this paper, we aim to demonstrate in a few case studies the observed current capabilities for EnMAP with regard to soil mapping based on different test sites and methodologies. Key soil properties could be derived and spatially mapped in agricultural test sites in semi-arid and temperate zones such as Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) content important for soil health and carbon sequestration, texture (clay content) important for soil fertility, and carbonate content. Additionally, we test different standard and state-of-the art methodologies, including new scenarios for time-series of hyperspectral remote sensing data for improved soil products.