University of Tehran Press Desert 2008-0875 23 1 2018 06 20 Effectiveness of spectral data reduction in detection of salt-affected soils in a small study area 97 106 66357 10.22059/jdesert.2018.66357 EN M. Rahmati Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Maragheh, Maragheh, East Azarbayjan, Iran N. Hamzehpour Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Maragheh, Maragheh, East Azarbayjan, Iran Journal Article 2017 12 16      Data reduction is used to aggregate or amalgamate the large data sets into smaller and manageable information pieces in order to fast and accurate classification of different attributes. However, excessive spatial or spectral data reduction may result in losing or masking important radiometric information. Therefore, we conducted this research to evaluate the effectiveness of the different spectral data reduction algorithms including Principle Component Analysis (PCA) and Minimum Noise Fraction (MNF) transformation, Pixel Purity Index (PPI), and n Dimensional Visualizer (n-DV) algorithms on accuracy of the supervised classification of the salt-affected soils applying ETM+ data beside 188 ground control points. Results revealed that data reduction caused around 20 to 30 % decreases in classification results compared to none reduced data. It seems that applying spectral data reduction algorithm in small study areas is not only supportive, but also has negative effects on classification results. Therefore, it may better to not to use the algorithms in small areas.    https://jdesert.ut.ac.ir/article_66357_1c70bfb14f76de72e912533778d1a1d5.pdf