Evaluation of Microwave-Optical-Infrared Satellite Imagery for Land Cover Mapping

Abstract

Satellite images are vital tool in various applications like land use, land cover mapping and geographic information system (GIS) etc. A variety of factors involved in the process of image acquisition, introduce geometric distortions, which are removed by pre-processing of the digital imagery. Geometric correction is the process of rectification of geometric errors introduced in the imagery during the process of its acquisition.From practical point of view, the Sentinel-1 images are to be depended as source of microwave satellite imagery. While, Sentinel-2 are to be used for providing the study with the required visible-infrared images.The study includes performing different digital image processing and analysis techniques, such as: geometric and radiometric corrections, spatial merge (fusion), feature extraction with using different spatial filtering techniques and spectral classification to reveal which LULC image presents better accuracy results.The microwave portion of the spectrum covers the range from approximately 1cm to 1m in wavelength. Because of their long wavelengths, compared to the visible and infrared, microwaves have special properties that are important for remote sensing. Longer wavelength microwave radiation can penetrate through cloud cover, haze, dust, and all but the heaviest rainfall as the longer wavelengths are not susceptible to atmospheric scattering which affects shorter optical wavelengths. This property allows detection of microwave energy under almost all weather and environmental conditions so that data can be collected at any time.