For optical images, cloud and cloud shadow is always a problem during image processing and interpretation. Landsat ETM+ images, as a kind of optical images, are affected by cloud too. On the other hand, microwave images such as ALOS PALSAR images, which depend on microwave, is not affected by cloud, thus they are cloud-free. The aim of this study is to develop a semi-automatic method for removi...

Early in its mission, the Landsat-7 spacecraft was temporarily placed in a ‘‘tandem’’ orbit very close to that of the Landsat-5 spacecraft in order to facilitate the establishment of sensor calibration continuity between the Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) and Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) sensors. The key period for the tandem configuration was June 1–4, 1999, during which hund...

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Landsat program has been dedicated to sustaining data continuity over the 20-year period during which Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced TM Plus (ETM+) sensors have been acquiring images of the earth's surface. In 2000, NASA launched the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) Advanced Land Imager (ALI) to test new technology that could improve t...

An atmospheric correction tool has been developed for public web site access for the Landsat-5 and Landsat-7 thermal band. The Atmospheric Correction Parameter Calculator uses the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) modeled atmospheric global profiles for a particular date, time and location as input. Using commercially-available MODTRAN software and a suite of integration algo...

The aim of this study is to extract water body using the integrated features of Landsat ETM+ and ALOS PALSAR data. Water body extracted from Landsat ETM+ tends to lose smaller water bodies like small rivers and ponds. Besides, water area with plant (lotus) is difficult to recognize. ALOS PALSAR data have a much higher resolution, capable of extracting almost all the water bodies without confusi...

The Landsat-7 ETM+ sensor offers several enhancements over the Landsat-4,5 Thematic Mapper (TM) sensor, including increased spectral information content, improved geodetic accuracy, reduced noise, reliable calibration, the addition of a panchromatic band, and improved spatial resolution of the thermal band. In this paper, we present some initial comparisons between Landsat-5 TM and Landsat-7 ET...

This paper presents a Python QGIS (PyQGIS) plugin, which has been developed for the purpose of producing Land Surface Temperature (LST) maps from Landsat 5 TM, Landsat 7 ETM+ and Landsat 8 TIRS, Thermal Infrared (TIR) imagery. The plugin has been developed purposely to ease the process of LST extraction from Landsat Visible, Near Infrared (VNIR) and TIR imagery. It has the ability to estimate L...

A hybrid algorithm of the BP-ANN/GA (Back Propagation Artificial Neural Network and Genetic Algorithm) is developed to optimize the initial weights and make fast convergence of the BP-ANN. This algorithm is applied to data fusion of Landsat ETM+ and ERS-2 SAR for classification of the urban terrain surfaces. An example of the Shanghai Pudong area using both the Landsat ETM+ and ERS-2 SAR image ...

This paper compares and contrasts predictions of forest height in Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) plantations based on mediumresolution Landsat ETM+, high-resolution IKONOS satellite imagery and airborne Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) data. The relationship between field-measured height and LiDAR height is linear and highly significant (R 0.98) and so LiDAR height measurements were used to...

The Earth Observation for Sustainable Development of Canada’s forests (EOSD) project monitors Canada's forests from space. Canada contains ten-percent of the world’s forests. Initial EOSD products are land cover, forest change, forest biomass, and automated methods. There are more than 500 LANDSAT TM or ETM+ scenes required for a single coverage of Canada’s forests. Multi-temporal analysis usin...