Determination of land surface temperature using Landsat 8 images: Comparative study of algorithms on the city of Granada

• Main Author: David Hidalgo-García
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universitat Politécnica de Valencia 2021-07-01
• Series: Revista de Teledetección
• Subjects: landsat 8; temperatura superficie terrestre; datos infrarrojos; teledetección; algoritmos
• Online Access: https://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/raet/article/view/14538

The use of satellite images has become, in recent decades, one of the most common ways to determine the Land Surface Temperature (LST). One of them is through the use of Landsat 8 images that requires the use of single-channel (MC) and two-channel (BC) algorithms. In this study, the LST of a medium-sized city, Granada (Spain) has been determined over a year by using five Landsat 8 algorithms that are subsequently compared with ambient temperatures. Few studies compare the data source with the seasonal variations of the same metropolis, which together with its geographical location, high pollution and the significant thermal variations it experiences make it a suitable place for the development of this research. As a result of the statistical analysis process, the regression coefficients R2, mean square error (RMSE), mean error bias (MBE) and standard deviation (SD) were obtained. The average results obtained reveal that the LST derived from the BC algorithms (1.0 °C) are the closest to the ambient temperatures in contrast to the MC (-5.6 °C), although important variations have been verified between the different zones of the city according to its coverage and seasonal periods. Therefore, it is concluded that the BC algorithms are the most suitable for recovering the LST of the city under study.