Validation of Landsat-8 satellite-derived radiative energy fluxes using wireless sensor network data over Beas River basin, India

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the present paper, spatio-temporal variability in surface radiative energy fluxes has been estimated for snow/ice-covered Beas River basin, lower Western Himalaya, India using remote sensing technology and evaluated with wireless sensor network (WSN) collected data at various elevation levels. Surface energy fluxes are derived using Landsat-8 satellite images and digital elevation model (DEM) at fine spatial resolution (~30-m) during clear-sky days of the year 2016–2017. RMSE have been estimated in incoming shortwave, incoming longwave, outgoing longwave, net shortwave and net radiation flux and observed to be ~5%, ~ 6.3%, ~2.4%, ~18.9%, and ~28.3% of the respective mean values. Landsat-8 images in conjunction with DEM have shown the potential to retrieve variability in surface radiative energy fluxes at fine resolution in mountain terrain. Additionally, temporal variability in radiative radiation fluxes have also been explored on different elevation ranges and aspects slopes. The high energy fluxes have been estimated on southern slopes during analysis as compared to northern slopes in the present study. The paper appears to be the first for reporting net radiation flux for Himalayan snow cover at 30-m spatial resolution. The satellite-derived energy fluxes may be valuable in various applications associated with climatology, hydrology, wet-snow avalanche detection, land use land cover, mass balance, ecology, etc., especially in the absence of in situ data.