Soil provenance using ATR-FTIR spectroscopy augmented with chemometrics–A pilot study

<title>Abstract</title> <p>ATR-FTIR spectroscopy coupled with chemometric tools was employed for the analysis. The spectral data obtained from ATR-FTIR were further processed using multivariate statistical techniques such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) to interpret the results and classify the samples. The discrimination of soil samples was achieved based on variations in their organic and inorganic constituents. The PCA model achieved an overall classification accuracy of 86.11%, and the PLS-DA model showed an accuracy of 85.56%, indicating good discriminatory capability among the analysed classes. The present study effectively highlights the potential of ATR-FTIR spectroscopy combined with chemometric analysis as a reliable, rapid, and non-destructive approach for the geographical discrimination of soil samples.</p>