Quality assessment of several methods to recover surface reflectance

using synthetic imaging spectroscopy data

E. Ben-Dor
a,
*
, B. Kindel
b
, A.F.H Goetz
b
a
Department of Geography and Human Environment, Tel-Aviv University, P.O Box 39040, Ramat Aviv Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel
b
Center for Study of the Earth from Space (CSES), Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado at Boulder,
Campus Box 216, Boulder, CO 80309-0216, USA
Received 4 September 2003; received in revised form 27 January 2004; accepted 27 January 2004
Abstract
A synthetic data spectral cube that represents at-sensor radiance data of AVIRIS was used to examine the accuracy of several methods to
recover absolute surface reflectance data of terrestrial targets. Soil and vegetation targets, selected to represent the images of ground variation
and their spectra, were retrieved using HATCH, Empirical Line (EL) and their hybrids methods. After a synthetic radiance data cube was
generated, reflectance recovery was carried out and compared with the true (input) reflectance information. It was found that even under
controlled and ideal conditions, the spectral recovery using HATCH code provided differences of up to 40%. The EL methods, using the two
end-members that represent the scene reduced this difference to about 4%, and in some cases, even to 0.1% It was found that selecting the
calibration targets over low water vapor content improved the results. Applying EL on radiance data provided a severe difference of more
than 200% in areas located outside the calibration target water vapor zone. Only over similar water vapor zones were the EL methods found
to reasonably recover the surface reflectance. Examining the spectral variability in the calibration targets showed that using of spectral
features targets with relative spectral similarity is almost as effective as using spectrally featureless targets for the EL process. Applying EL,
using external spectral information of possible known targets, revealed a relatively high difference, as compared to the true reflectance data.
However, thematic analysis using a SAM classifier proved that even under non-ideal conditions, the EL correction can yield a reasonable
spatial mapping capability relative to those obtained under real reflectance domains. It was concluded that EL must be run on reflectance data
(generated from absolute based method) over low water vapor zones to provide the most precise reflectance information. Also, it was found
that it is not mandatory to select calibration targets that are totally featureless or characterized by low or high albedo response.
D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Imaging spectroscopy; Atmospheric correction; Empirical line; Synthetic data; Thematic analysis
1. Introduction
The retrieval of precise and accurate spectral reflectance
information from Imaging Spectroscopy (IS) data is a key
factor in improving remote sensing of the Earth. The
absolute reflectance properties of many solid and liquid
materials in the VIS-NIR-SWIR region (0.42.5 Am) have a
significant correlation with many chemical and physical
parameters under laboratory and field conditions (Ben-Dor
et al., 1999; Clark, 1999; Gitelson et al., 1999). This
correlation is possible, mainly because sensitive spectros-
copy can extract weak (but significant) spectral features that
add to the few strong absorption features across the VIS-
NIR-SWIR, allowing greater confidence in assessing the
chemical and physical compositions of matter (Ben-Dor &
Banin, 1995). In the field of remote sensing, the IS tech-
nique is opening up a new frontier, by promising near-
laboratory accuracy of reflectance information for every
pixel in an image (Goetz, 1992). This capability enables
better remote thematic mapping of the Earth from many
perspectives. IS is an advantageous technique because it
permits the extraction of a continuous, rather than a step
spectrum for each pixel, and provides the means to distin-
guish among very similar materials. Several examples
support this claim, such as the ability to differentiate
between dolomite and calcite (e.g., Ben-Dor et al., 1994)
or between kaolin and smectite (e.g., Kruse et al., 1991) or
between dry and green leaf spectral features (Gao & Goetz,
1994). Moreover, improvements in IS thematic capability
0034-4257/$ - see front matter D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.rse.2004.01.014
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +972-3-6423619; fax: +972-3-6414148.
E-mail address: bendor@post.tau.ac.il (E. Ben-Dor).
www.elsevier.com/locate/rse
Remote Sensing of Environment 90 (2004) 389404
are emerging for similar spectral configurations, allowing
more spectral information to be gained, as the signal to noise
ratio (SNR) increasesinformation previously obscured by
the noise. In this regard, Kruse (2002) showed that the
Airborne Visible/infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS)
data of 2001 (SNR around 500) provides more landscape
information than the Hyperion data of 2000 (SNR around
50) over the same area.
Because IS sensors acquire the data far from the target,
the retrieval of near absolute (laboratory-level) reflectance
information is rather problematic and not a straightforward
issue. Due to the thick atmospheric media, there is signif-
icant attenuation along the sunsurfacesensor pathway.
Thus the true spectral response of the surface target is
heavily contaminated by atmospheric and solar signals,
as well as by other factors such as sub-pixel mixture,
sensor geometry and optics, adjacency and topographic
effects and more. Whereas these factors are effective in
all remote sensing domains, in the IS field they play a
particularly important role, as they significantly cause
misinterpretation of the area in question (Nadeau et al.,
2002; Secker et al., 2001). Accordingly, these factors create
the challenge to find ways to remove them or account for
them properly, in order to recover spectral reflectance as
accurately as possible. Needless to say, absolute reflectance
properties are essential so that users can exploit all the
laboratory-based methods to further improve the thematic
classification of IS images and to better detect small
features that may provide new information about the study
area.
Several methods and strategies to account and correct for
the above-mentioned contamination factors are known in IS
practice (Mustard et al., 2001). They can be divided into two
categories: (1) model-based methods and (2) empirical-
based methods. The first category uses methods in which
the radiance at the sensor is modeled using radiative transfer
models and data from detailed atmospheric and sun infor-
mation archives (e.g., MODTRAN). In this procedure, field
measurement is not required and basic information, such as
the site height and location, flight altitude, local visibility
and acquisition times, are the only required information.
Several physical-based methods dedicated to retrieving
reflectance information from IS data have been developed,
such as ATREM (Gao et al., 1993), ATCOR (Richter, 1996;
Richter & Schlapfer, 2002), ACRON (ACORN, 2001),
FLAASH (Adler-Golden et al., 1998), CAM5S (ONeil et
al., 1996), and lately, HATCH (Qu et al., 2000), as well as
their modifications described by Sanders et al. (2001). Each
of the above methods focuses on one or more issues, but all
are quite similar in their absolute basis and execution, and
provide similar results (e.g., Staenz et al., 2001).
The empirical-based methods rely on the scene informa-
tion and do not use physical information as in the model-
based methods. Empirical-based methods can be divided
into two categories: (1) one that relies on the raw scene data
without ground reference information and (2) one that relies
on the raw scene data together with ground reference
information. There are two common approaches in the first
category, namely, the Flat Field (FF) method (Goetz &
Srivastava, 1985; Roberts et al., 1986) and the Internal
Apparent Relative Reflectance (IARR) methods (Kruse et
al., 1985). In both, the raw spectral data of each pixel is
divided by a reference spectrum (in FF, a homogenous
bright target and in IARR, an average scene spectrum).
The drawback of these methods is that they are strongly
artifact- and scene-dependent. An empirical method, known
as the Empirical Line (EL) approach (Conel et al., 1987;
Roberts et al., 1985) belongs to the second category. In this
method, two (or more) targets in the scene (featureless,
homogeneous, with high albedo differences, if possible;
e.g., Furby & Campbell, 2001; Moran et al., 2001) are
linearly correlated against corresponding field or laboratory
spectra. The correlation for each band provides the relation-
ship by which the entire scene is corrected, pixel by pixel,
channel by channel, for all data.
The advantages and disadvantages of each of the above
methods are well known and have been discussed and
summarized in many studies (e.g., Ben-Dor & Kruse,
1994; Ben-Dor et al., 1994; Moran et al., 2001; Mustard
et al., 2001). In physical-based methods, many artifacts can
be introduced (Boardman, 1998; Mustard et al., 2001),
whereas in relative-based methods, the results are severely
affected by artifacts, especially if ground reference infor-
mation is not presented. From a survey of the literature, we
concluded that more and more users are now moving
towards model, rather than empirical-based methods as the
former has become more user-friendly (and is installed in
most of the common IS software), provide reasonable
results and do not require visiting the specific site.
The EL method, the most frequently used among the
empirical-based methods, provides reasonable results. How-
ever, it requires visits to the ground sites and care must be
taken in selecting the calibration targets (sometimes more
than two targets are neededpreferably spectrally feature-
less and homogeneous ones that adequately represent the
albedo diversity in the scene). The power of the EL method
is that it can be applied to radiance data (Ben-Dor et al.,
2002) or even to DN data (Moran et al., 2001) in order to
overcome radiometric calibration differences, and thus can
be used for orbital sensor calibration procedures (e.g.,
Brown et al., 2001; Teillet et al., 2001). In practice, methods
that combine both model- and relative-based approaches
may also be useful (e.g., Boardman, 1998; Goetz et al.,
1998; Richter, 1996). With this in mind, a hybrid EL and
absolute-based method was first suggested and applied by
Clark et al. (1993), who achieved better results when using
them in combination than when running them separately. In
such a combination approach, one or two ground (or
equivalent) spectra (either reflectance or irradiance) are used
to boost the absolute-based atmospherically corrected
data into more precise domains. The influence of the
varying atmosphere conditions and/or the spectral properties
E. Ben-Dor et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 90 (2004) 389404 390
of the boost targets on the EL results still remains
uncertain (Ben-Dor & Levin, 2000).
Assessing a methods ability to recover reflectance prop-
erties for IS data is commonly carried out on a qualitative,
rather than quantitative, basis, by visually comparing field
and corrected data of limited validation targets (e.g., Ben-
Dor & Levin, 2000; Ben-Dor et al., 2002; Vogelmann et al.,
2001). Nevertheless, some quantitative assessments are
valid, such as the procedure presented by Leprieur et al.
(1995), who examined the difference of retrieval reflectance
information from AVIRIS data using a absolute-based
approach. By changing the atmospheric conditions, they
concluded that using a radiative transfer model which
accounts for the multiple scattering effect, best recovered
the reflectance information. Recently, Alter-Gartenberg and
Nolf (2002) applied an end-to-end stochastic simulation to
IS simulated data to assess the sensitivity of the model-
based method ATCOR (Richter, 1996; Richter & Schlapfer,
2002) in order to retrieve reflectance for land use classifi-
cation. Under various conditions (atmospheric, sensor and
area), they examined the methods ability and stability to
thematically map six terrestrial categories. Green (1998)
used simulated AVIRIS data to study the channel response
function. He concluded that 510% differences in spectral
calibration caused significant, spectrally distinct differences
in measured radiance that contains narrow atmosphere and
solar absorptions. In another study, Green (2001) examined
the IS sensitivity to account for the atmospheric water vapor
content versus the accurate knowledge of surface measured
objects. They found that the derived surface reflectance is
strongly sensitive to the water vapor content in IS measure-
ments. Based on the above, it is postulated that simulation
techniques provide a perfect environment in which ques-
tions regarding the quality of the IS data can be quantita-
tively examined and answered under controlled conditions.
One example is the MODO interface of Schlapfer (2001)
which allows users to create easily with at sensor IS signals
of selected scenarios.
Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, a compre-
hensive and systematic study to examine the spectral differ-
ences using a full gamut of atmospheric correction methods
(starting with those that are model-based and continuing
with empirical-based ones and their hybrids) under a soil
vegetation mixture environment has never been applied
under simulation conditions. Consequently, there is still no
exact information about the operational capabilities and the
quality of the methods in recovering reflectance information
from raw IS data under the above conditions. Therefore, the
purpose of this study is to carry out a controlled study of
simulated IS data, to examine the ability and accuracy of
absolute- and empirical-based methods (and their hybrids),
and to retrieve spectral information from IS data. For that
purpose, a synthetic data set of AVIRIS at-sensor data was
generated, and the spectral information was recovered from
the raw AVIRIS data and quantitatively compared to true
(input) reflectance information.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. General
To perform the quantitative analysis, we selected an
AVIRIS sensor configuration, because AVIRIS represents
the highest IS capability attainable from both air and space
domains. AVIRIS is a Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
imaging scanner sensor consisting of 224 bands across the
VIS-NIR-SWIR region (10 nm band width) with a relatively
very high signal-to-noise ratio (Green & Pavri, 2001). The
AVIRIS is a sensor used by scientists in many fields, such as
geology, agriculture, limnology, soil science, and atmo-
sphere science (see AVIRIS home page http://makalu.jpl.
nasa.gov/aviris.html). A synthetic AVIRIS cube was gener-
ated for this study in order to have well defined conditions,
and we focused on limited terrestrial and atmospheric
spectral information while setting other factors (such as
noise and ground effects) to zero.
2.2. Procedure for generating the synthetic AVIRIS cube
The synthetic AVIRIS-like cube was generated using
the atmospheric radiative transfer code MODTRAN 4.0
(Berk et al., 1999). The code was run 134 times,
corresponding to 134 water vapor amounts ranging from
0.5 to 4.5 cm of a column of water vapor (providing an
equal interval of 0.03 cm). A wide water vapor range was
selected to illustrate extreme situations in the atmosphere
and to cover all possible scenarios from arid (0.5 cm) to
tropical (4.5 cm) zones. In order to generate the inputs for
predicting the at-sensor radiance for each water vapor
amount, the code was run three times with constant
albedos of 0.0 (the path radiance term), 0.5 and 1.0. Using
these results, the two-way transmittance, path radiance, and
spherical albedo were generated. With the addition of the
surface reflectance and exoatmospheric solar spectrum, the
at-sensor radiance can be predicted (see later description).
The solar geometry was chosen to replicate an average
imaging spectrometer data collection, run with a solar
zenith angle of about 45j. The MODTRAN model was
set to the mid-latitude summer model, a constant
surface elevation (0 km), a visibility of 50 km and a
CO
2
mixing ratio of 360 ppm. Although AVIRIS is an
airborne sensor that flies in altitudes up to 20 km, the
sensor altitude was set to 100 km, in order to account for
full atmosphere attenuation, as seen from orbit. The runs
were performed with MODTRANs two-stream DISORT
and correlated-k algorithm.
The surface spectral information for the input to the
synthetic data sets was obtained from two ASD-FR field
spectra of soil and vegetation, acquired in Morgan County,
Colorado. The vegetation and soil spectra were mixed
linearly in 1% increments. The MODTRAN and Analytical
Spectral Devices, Full Range (ASD-FR) spectra were con-
volved to an actual AVIRIS 1999 wavelength file (band
E. Ben-Dor et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 90 (2004) 389404 391
centers and Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM)). The cube
was constructed as follows: the 134 samples across the
image are the 134 water vapor values; sample one contains
0.5 cm of column water vapor, sample 134 contains 4.5 cm,
the top line consists of 100% vegetation, and the bottom line
of 99% soil. The data were scaled by 10,000 and then
converted to integer, and finally scaled by the AVIRIS
scaling factors. Previous to this, all calculations were
performed as floating point. The synthetic AVIRIS-like cube
was then transferred to HATCH code to retrieve the re-
covery surface reflectance. The HATCH code was initial-
ized with the proper sensor geometry and surface elevation,
using an estimate of 50 km of visibility. No information on
water vapor content or spatial distribution was included
the model would determine that by itself. The HATCH code
was selected as it is not based directly on the MODTRAN
code (which was used to create the data) to prevent output
input dependency.
The wavelength file given to HATCH was identical to
that used to perform the spectral resampling on the MOD-
TRAN and ASD-FR spectra, so that the synthetic data
would have perfect spectral calibration. It should be noted
that some slight radiometric differences between the MOD-
TRAN model and the HATCH code appear in wavelengths
shorter than 800 nm, due to different exoatmospheric solar
spectra used in the two codes.
The results of the above processing yielded three data
sets as follows: (1) a true (input) reflectance cube data set;
(2) an at-sensor radiance cube data set; and (3) a HATCH
reflectance-recovery cube data set.
2.3. Data manipulation and procedures
For both the at-sensor radiance cube data set and the
HATCH reflectance-recovery cube data set, certain manip-
ulations were applied as follows: an Empirical Line (EL)
method using calibration and validation targets from data set
1 as well as another EL method using an external spectral
library (more details later). On one of the manipulated data
sets, a classification analysis routine, using a Spectral Angle
Mapper (SAM) was employed. In the SAM classifier, the
similarity of a test spectrum was examined against a
reference spectrum by measuring the angular differences
between the two spectra in a vector space (Kruse et al.,
1993).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. General
The following section will review each of the proce-
dures which were performed to recover the reflectance
from the synthetic radiance data. Table 1 summarizes the
relevant treatments and Fig. 1 provides a schematic of the
test cases used in this study. From this point on, various
experiments will be discussed in the model space shown
in Table 1.
3.2. HATCH correction
The first step is to perform a model-based method using
HATCH code. The reflectance spectra of the end-mem-
bers targets, used to build the mixed surface image
(soil and vegetation) are shown in Fig. 2a, while in Fig. 2b
and c, the radiance spectra of the above end-members (as a
product of applying the atmospheric factor to the reflec-
tance data) are presented for two water vapor contents: b-
low (0.5 cm) and c-high (4.5 cm). As can be seen, the
synthetic radiance spectra appear to satisfactorily represent
real AVIRIS data, provided from both measurements and
in published literature (example: Green & Pavri, 2001). In
general, the HATCH code (or other related model-based
methods) is applied to radiance data in order to remove the
water vapor effects, as well as other features of atmo-
spheric attenuation, such as aerosols, molecular scattering,
and oxygen and carbon dioxide absorptions. The aim is to
extract the reflectance information of the surface for
further analysis. We used the synthetic radiance data set
to generate a new data cube, called the HATCH spectral
recovery data, described in Table 1 as treatment a. The
scaled reflectance of four targets, representing the extremes
of soil and vegetation mixtures in the synthetic image
(100% vegetation and 100% soil) with low and high water
vapor content (0.5 and 4.5 cm water vapor, respectively),
are presented along with their corresponding true (in-
put) reflectance spectra in Fig. 3a (each target was
generated by averaging four closed pixels in the synthetic
image.
Although the HATCH code was run under ideal con-
ditions and data sets, without any signal limitation or other
interferences (e.g., optical, BRDF, adjacency effect, precise
location and measurements of the calibration sites act), it
was postulated that the recovered spectra would show
variations when compared to the true (input) spectra (espe-
cially in the 0.91.4 Am spectral region). Moreover, for
higher water vapor levels, more artifacts were found in the
data. To quantitatively assess this observation, we applied a
ratio manipulation technique in which the HATCH spectrum
for each target was divided by its true (input-scaled)
spectrum taken from the input reflectance cube. Fig. 4
shows the ratio spectra of the four selected targets presented
in Fig. 3a. The noisy regions, located at the position of
strong water vapor effects (around 1.4 and 1.9 and 2.5 Am),
are marked with horizontal bars and were neither considered
nor analyzed further. As can be seen, relatively large differ-
ences were encountered outside the area of the marked
barsrelative differences of up to 40% (0.1 reflectance
unit) in the vegetation targets (A1 and E1;see Fig. 1 for
exact location) or 25% (0.05 reflectance unit) for soil targets
(A9 and E9; see Fig. 1 for exact location) in the blue-VIS
region. It is important to note that the relative spectral values
E. Ben-Dor et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 90 (2004) 389404 392
cannot represent the absolute spectral variation if the albedo
of the targets has not been considered. For example,
comparing 20% relative difference in low albedo and high
targets (e.g., VIS in vegetation or in bright soil) might be the
result of small absolute differences in the low albedo target
as compared to the high albedo one. Therefore albedo
variation should be considered when discussing relative
spectral differences.
It can be concluded from the above that even under ideal
conditions, when an atmospherically based model is used,
the best results will not perfectly yield the reflectance
information of high and low albedo targets within an
average difference of about 20%. In some cases, the
difference can be even higher (mostly in the VIS region).
This finding is important for the analysis of the VIS region
over targets with low signal output (e.g., vegetation and
water). Therefore, caution must be exercised in such cases.
It is assumed that, in reality, the spectral differences in
retrieval reflectance information might be even higher,
because other factors not discussed here may come into
play.
3.3. EL on HATCH correction
As already mentioned in the Introduction, absolute
reflectance is essential in order to enable users to exploit
the available laboratory-based methods for further improve-
ment of the thematic classification of IS images. The
Table 1
A summary table for the treatments employed to the synthetic data
Treatment Samples
in calibration
Samples in validation Symbol Description
a Non C1, C3, C5, C7, C9 HATCH HATCH corrected data
A5, B5, C5, D5, E5
A1, A9, E1, E9
b A1, A9 C1, C3, C5, C7, C9 EL-HATCH-A EL On HATCH corrected data, using
A5, B5, C5, D5, E5 calibration targets on low WV zone
A2, A8, E2, E8 (0.5 cm) located at line A in Fig. 1
c E1, E9 C1, C3, C5, C7, C9 EL-HATCH-E EL On HATCH corrected data, using
A5, B5, C5, D5, E5 calibration targets on low WV zone
(4.5 cm) located at line E in Fig. 1
d A1, E9 C1, C3, C5, C7, C9 EL-HATCH-AE EL On HATCH corrected data, using
A5, B5, C5, D5, E5 calibration targets on low and high WV
zone (0.5 and 4.5 cm) located at lines A
and E in Fig. 1
e Non C1, C3, C5, C7, C9 EFFORT EFFORT on HATCH corrected data
A5, B5, C5, D5, E5
A2, A8, E2, E8
f A1, A9 C1, C3, C5, C7, C9 EL-RAD-A EL On Radiance data, using calibration
A5, B5, C5, D5, E5 targets on low WV zone (0.5 cm) located
A2, A8, E2, E8 at line A in Fig. 1
g E1, E9 C1, C3, C5, C7, C9 EL-RAD-E EL On Radiance data, using calibration
A5, B5, C5, D5, E5 targets on high WV zone (0.5 cm)
A2, A8, E2, E8 located at line A in Fig. 1
h A1, E9 C1, C3, C5, C7, C9 EL-RAD-AE EL On Radiance data, using calibration
A5, B5, C5, D5, E5 targets on low and high WV zones (0.5
A2, A8, E2, E8 and 4.5 cm) located at lines A and E in
Fig. 1
i A2, A8 A1, E9 EL-HATCH-DIV1 EL on HATCH data using calibration
targets located over low WV zone
(0.5 cm) with high spectral variation
j A4, A6 A1, E9 EL-HATCH-DIV2 EL on HATCH data using calibration
targets located over low WV zone
(0.5 cm) with low spectral variation
k A2, A4 A1, E9 EL-HATCH-DIV3 EL on HATCH data using calibration
targets located over low WV zone
(0.5 cm) with low spectral diversity
dominated by vegetation
l A6, A8 A1, E9 EL-HATCH-DIV4 EL on HATCH data using calibration
targets located over low WV zone
(0.5 cm) with low spectral diversity
dominated by soil
m A1, A9 A2, A8, E2, E8 EL-HATCH-EXT EL on HATCH data using calibration
targets located over low WV zone
(0.5 cm) and their spectral representation
using external library data base
E. Ben-Dor et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 90 (2004) 389404 393
previous HATCH result suggests that additional efforts are
required in order to obtain absolute near laboratory reflec-
tance information from IS data. One method suitable for
such a purpose is the Empirical Line (EL) correction
technique, already referred to. The EL method is basically
an empirical approach in which two (or more) separate
targets on the ground with well-known field (or laboratory)
spectral information are selected. The reflectance and the
corresponding non-corrected IS spectra are then used to
construct a linear relationship between each spectral chan-
nel to account for offset and gain factors that best represent
the channel response. These factors are then applied to the
uncorrected data on a pixel-by-pixel, channel-by-channel
basis, and a corrected EL image is generated. In practice, it
is recommended that this approach should be executed after
selecting at least two good targets with high and low albedo
characteristics with no spectral features or as few as
possible.
The EL method is widely used, and it frequently produ-
ces good thematic results whenever radiometric or atmo-
spheric information are not known or appear to be incorrect.
In this regard, several studies have already shown that the
EL method is able to correct IS data when other methods,
including absolutely based models, have failed (e.g., Ben-
Dor & Levin, 2000; Ben-Dor et al., 2002). As already
pointed out, to the best of our knowledge, the EL capability,
accuracy and performance have never yet been examined
under controlled and systematic conditions. Therefore, we
decided to examine these using the current synthetic data
set.
For the EL method, we selected pairs of calibration
targets that represented different ground features and differ-
ent atmospheric conditions. The first EL was run using two
calibration targets selected to represent 100% vegetation and
100% soil, situated within the low water vapor zone (0.5
cm) (targets A1 and A9 in Fig. 1, treatment b in Table 1).
The second EL was run using the previous vegetation and
soil targets, but over areas in the high water vapor zone (4.5
cm) (targets E1 and E9 in Fig. 1, treatment c in Table 1).
The third EL run used the previous vegetation and soil
targets, but for areas in mixed low and high water vapor
zones (0.5 and 4.5 cm) (targets A1 and E9 in Fig. 1,
treatment d in Table 1). All of the above EL corrections
were carried out on HATCH retrieved reflectance data and
are summarized in Table 1. At this stage, the validation
targets were selected in the low and high water vapor zones
with varying amounts of vegetation and soil at each target
(82.5%, 17.5%), using targets A2, E2, A8 and E8, respec-
tively (see Fig. 1 and Table 1). Fig. 5a provides the spectra
of the targets A2, A8, E2 and E8, after treatment b was
applied, along with the corresponding true (input) spectra
(2,8) for comparison. As can be seen, qualitatively, the
recovery of the reflectance information after applying the
above EL treatment was relatively reliable, and if a visual-
Fig. 1. A schematic map presenting the position of all validation and
calibration targets used in this study in the synthetic image space.
Fig. 2. The original true (field) spectra of the two components (soil and
vegetation) used to build the synthetic data base (a) and its at-radiance
simulated response, after addition of the atmosphere attenuation under two
water vapor conditions: b0.5 cm and c4.5 cm.
E. Ben-Dor et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 90 (2004) 389404 394
Fig. 4. The ratio spectra of the targets spectra (RHATCH), presented in Fig. 3, against their corresponding true (field) spectra (Rtrue). Also provided are
horizontal bars in the spectral noise regions.
Fig. 3. The recovered reflectance and the true (field) spectra of four targets (A1, A9, E1 and E9), representing 100% of vegetation (1) and 100% soil (9), as
obtained after running the HATCH code on the synthetic radiometric data under two water vapor conditions (0.5 and 4.5 cm) (a). Also given are the spectra of
the above target after running the EFFORT method (b).
E. Ben-Dor et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 90 (2004) 389404 395
ization decision was made, the correction would seem
acceptable.
In order to quantitatively assess the reflectance recov-
ery of each method applied (at this stage, EL on HATCH
data; treatments a, b, c and d in Table 1), we selected
new validation targets located at the center of the syn-
thetic image in both water vapor variation and soil
vegetation mixture lines. These are presented in Fig. 1
as row 5 (samples A, B, C, D and E) and line C (samples
1, 3, 5, 7 and 9), respectively. Row 5 represents equal
percentages of soil and vegetation (50%) with varying
amounts of water vapor, and line C represents a water
vapor content of 2.5 cm and varying amounts of vegeta-
tion soil. For each of the validation targets, we calculated
the deviation from unity under the treatment used against
the true (input) ratio spectra, but omitting the noisy
channels (at 1.4, 1.9 and 2.4 Am, marked as shaded areas
in Fig. 4).
The total number of channels for this calculation
remained 163 and the Average Sum of Deviation
Square (ASDS) parameter was calculated to correct
for the deviation from unity according to the following
equation:
ASDS ARr
n
1
2
=n 1
where n is the channel number and
Rr
n
Rt
n=
Rtr
n
2
where Rt
n
is the value obtained by a given treatment
and Rtr
n
is the input corresponding reflectance value for
that channel. (Plotting Rt
n
for all channels provides the
ratio spectrum (also termed difference spectrum) shown
in Fig. 4.) Plotting the ASDS value for each validation
target and for every studied treatment is given in Fig.
6a. The plots were evaluated for the vegetationsoil
mixture line (line C) and for the water vapor variation
line (row 5). As can be seen, the ASDS values (and
hence the methods difference margin) of all the EL
treatments used were much lower than the ASDS
values of the stand-alone HATCH correction.
Fig. 5. The recovered reflectance spectra of four validation targets (A2, A8, E2 and E8) using the EL method on: (a) the HATCH database and (b) the radiance
data base, using two calibration targets situated over a low water vapor zone (treatment b, EL-HATCH-A and treatment f, EL-RAD-A, respectively). The
true (field) spectra of each sample are also provided.
E. Ben-Dor et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 90 (2004) 389404 396
Note that the best validation performance was obtained at
the position where the calibration and validation targets
have similar water vapor contents (EL-HATCH-A treatment
b, validation target A5, and EL-HATCH-E, treatment c,
validation target E5). This result suggests that the position
of the calibration targets (in terms of atmospheric condition)
is important for precise correction especially when no
model-based method has been previously applied to the
data. The more the validation targets were located in similar
water vapor zones of the calibration targets, the better the
results of the EL correction. The mixed calibration targets
(EL-HATCH-AE, treatment d) also provided reasonable and
stable performance in both the vegetationsoil mixture and
water vapor line directions. In the vegetationsoil line
(equal water vapor content and varying soil and vegetation
percentages), it was found that the best treatment results [the
best results were given] when EL was applied using targets
in both low and high water vapor zones (EL-HATCH-AE,
treatment d). Overall, the best spectral recovery performance
occurred over the lower water vapor zone of both the
calibration and validation targets. Calculating the difference
in percentages for the lowest correction performance
(HATCH [treatment a] in sample C1) from the ASDS data
gave a value of < 10%. However, it should be pointed out
that this value was an average calculation across all the
spectrum channels, whereas in specific wavelengths, the
relative difference reached levels of >40% (see Fig. 4 and
the previous discussion). The best performance was given
by the EL-HATCH-A (treatment b), using target A5 as
validation, providing an average difference of <0.001%
with a maximum value of 0.1%.
One can conclude that any EL-HATCH treatment, i.e.,
application of the EL approach to HATCH corrected data,
using any target in the varying water vapor space, improves
the recovery of the reflectance data significantly (from
>40% to >0.1% difference), and better performance was
achieved in areas where the validation and calibration
targets were situated on similar water vapor zones. In
general, selecting the calibration targets over low water
vapor zones improves the reflectance retrieval significantly.
It is interesting to note that a significant increase within the
ASDS values occurred in the lower water vapor interval of 1
cm (either going from 0.5 cm (row 5, line A) to 1.5 cm (row
5, line B) or from 4.5 cm (row 5, line E) to 3.5 cm (row 5
line D), see Fig. 6a). In reality, targets locating over 1 cm
water vapor in the scene provide more reliable results than
those locating over 4 cm. This suggests that precaution is
required in using the EL correction in cases where the
scenes in questions are characterized by lower water vapor
variation . Based on the above, it is strongly recommended
to generate a water vapor image prior to any target selection,
so that the EL fine corrections can be made.
3.4. The EFFORT technique (on HATCH correction)
Artifacts from atmospheric model-based correction meth-
ods are well-known and discussed in the literature (see
Introduction). The EFFORT technique was developed by
Boardman (1998) in order to polish atmospheric model-
based artifacts. The EFFORT process is similar to the EL
method, in which matching reference spectra to a disturbed
data set is carried out to extract slope and intercept param-
Fig. 6. The Average Sum of Deviation Square (ASDS) in log space, against the position of the validation targets in the soil vegetation (line C) and the water
vapor (row 5) variation lines along the synthetic image space, for treatments that used EL on HATACH data (treatments b, c and d) (a) and for treatments that
used radiance data (treatments f, g and h) (b). The ASDS values of both HATCH and EFFORT on the HATCH correction (treatment a and e, respectively) are
also given for comparison.
E. Ben-Dor et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 90 (2004) 389404 397
eters. In the EFFORT method, however, with its robust
operational approach, no ground reference data are used,
and the slope and intercept t parameters are calculated from
the data itself. This is done by generating pseudo field
spectra by fitting an observed spectrum with a parametric
model of Legendre polynomials, optionally augmented with
real spectra. A number of spectra are used, spanning the
entire albedo range in order to give good leverage for the
linear regression process. The data values versus modeled
values are fit with a line for every band. The slope and offset
of this line are used to correct the apparent reflectance data
for the difference features.
In the current study, we chose to examine the EFFORT
method over three spectral segments free of water vapor
attenuation around 1.4 and 1.9 Am, without the end of the
SWIR spectral region (the regions selected were 0.41.30,
1.501.74 and 1.992.4 Am). The EFFORT treatment was
run on a HATCH corrected data set (it is called treatment e
in Table 1). Fig. 3b shows the result of the four selected
validation targets used in Fig. 3a (A1, A9, E1 and E9 in
HATCH validation) in two water vapor content zones (0.5
and 4.5 cm), along with the true (field) spectra. As can be
seen, the EFFORT process yielded polished spectra, but
significantly exaggerated some existing features, such as
chlorophyll at 0.68 Am and liquid water at 1.32 Am. To
quantitatively assess the EFFORT procedure, we applied the
ASDS test for each of the calibration sites situated on the
water vapor and vegetationsoil lines (line C and row 5). In
Fig. 6b, we provide the ASDS values for the validation
targets situated on these lines of both the EFFORT and
HATCH treatments (other treatments that will be discussed
later are also provided). As can be clearly seen, the EFFORT
method yielded higher ASDS values (and hence differences)
than the HATCH method in both the line C and row 5
directions. High water vapor and high vegetation content
produced higher ASDS values in the EFFORT correction,
since they consisted of strong original absorption features.
Therefore without boosting spectra, the EFFORT proce-
dure may be problematic, and it must be seriously consid-
ered whether polishing the spectra is worthwhile. This
conclusion however is exceptional only under similar con-
ditions used in this study, i.e., relatively low spectral
variance of soil and vegetation end-memebrs.
3.5. EL on radiance data
In the practical world, EL applications are often run on
radiance or DN data, rather than on reflectance (model-
based corrected) data. Thus, the next step is to investigate
the feasibility of applying the EL technique to the original
(simulated) radiance data. We applied new treatments (f, g
and h) that were similar to treatments b, c and d in all
components (calibration and validation targets), but dif-
fered in the basic data set used, which was the AVIRIS
radiance (and not the AVIRIS HATCH corrected) data set.
Fig. 5b presents the spectra of targets A2, A8, E2 and E8,
after applying treatment f (see Table 1; EL-RAD-A, in
which the calibration targets were selected on line A that
represents low water vapor content) and using the
corresponding true (input) spectra (2.8). As can be quali-
tatively observed, the recovery of the reflectance informa-
tion from the radiance data in this stage yielded favorable
results only for targets that were located within the cali-
bration targets water vapor zone (line A0.5 cm, targets
A2 and A8), whereas targets located outside this zone (line
E4.5 cm) were distorted by water vapor signals. How-
ever, in order to assess this option quantitatively, we
evaluated the ASDS test using validation samples on line
C and row 5. The treatments are denoted in Table 1 as
treatments f, g and h.
In Fig. 6b, the ASDS results for the above examination
in the validation targets were provided with the HATCH
(and EFFORT) values for comparison. It can be clearly
seen from this figure that, in contrast to treatments b, c and
d (EL on HATCH, Fig. 6a), the majority of the validation
points in each treatment fell to highest values than the
HATCH result itself. The highest ASDS value in this stage
was >100% and at a specific point, even reached a value of
600% (in EL-RAD-AE treatment h). Two exceptions are
noticeable, located on the vegetationsoil mixture line at
rows A and E. To further examine this result with more
targets domains, we enlarged the validation targets enve-
lope by selecting two more samples for each of the water
vapor zones: A2 and A8 for 0.5 cm and E2 and E8 for 4.5
cm (see Fig. 1 for exact location). Table 2 summarizes the
ASDS values of HATCH and the current EL-Radiance
treatments, calculated for the above validation targets. (The
calibration targets were selected in A (0.5 cm) position
(A1, A9 in calibration), E (4.5 cm) position (E1, E9 in
calibration) and in mixed positions (AE, 0.5 and 4.5 cm)
(A1, E8 in calibration).) From Table 2 it appears that the
EL-Radiance treatments provided lowest ASDS values as
compared to the corresponding HATCH values at any
stage. As in the EL-HATCH corrections the best perfor-
mance was obtained when the calibration and validation
targets were selected to represent zones have similar/the
same water vapor.
Therefore, it can be concluded at this stage that targets
located along similar water vapor zones of the calibration
Table 2
The MS values of several treatment used to recover the reflectance in four
selected targets
Treatment Sample in validation
A2 A8 E2 E8
EL (f/g)
a
1.92 10
5
(A1, A9)
b
1.34 10
5
(A1, A9)
b
2.09 10
5
(E1, E9)
b
6.90 10
5
(E1, E9)
a
EL (h)
a
0.0049
(A1, E9)
b
0.0965
(A1, E9)
b
0.21
(A1, E9)
b
0.069
(A1, E9)
b
HATCH (a)
a
0.0014 0.0042 0.0084 0.0041
a
Treatment symbol according to Table 1.
b
Targets in the EL Calibration.
E. Ben-Dor et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 90 (2004) 389404 398
targets were recovered effectively, even when radiance data
were used. Outside this zone, significant distortion by water
vapor signals occurred. If the area is characterized by a non-
homogenous water vapor spatial distribution (e.g,. varying
terrain area), then caution must be applied when using the
EL method on radiance (or DN) data. It should be pointed
out that the best ASDS values in this stage (EL-RAD-A,
treatment f, targets on A position and EL-RAD-E treatment
g, targets on E position) were still lower than the best
corresponding EL-HATCH treatment (EL-HATCH treat-
ment a) values. It is interesting to note that there were
similar trends in both databases (EL-HATCH and EL-RAD)
with regard to the variation of ASDS as the water vapor
level changed, i.e., locating the validation and calibration
samples under similar water vapor zones increased the
retrieval accuracy. In this regard, HATCH better recovered
the reflectance than the EL-RAD treatment, outside the
water vapor zone of the calibration EL targets.
The conclusions to be drawn from this section are:
application of the EL approach to radiance data (or DN
data as well) can introduce significant differences based on
water vapor variation in the scene. To improve the calibra-
tion significantly and provide data sets that present almost
absolute reflectance values, it is mandatory to use HATCH
or any other model-based method.
3.6. EL using spectral variability targets
The next stage in the EL examination is to investigate
the quality of the chosen calibration targets, in terms of
their spectral variability. Based on our previous results, we
selected a single (low) water vapor zone area to examine.
The area selected was line A (0.5 cm of water vapor), and
new calibration targets were set (A2, A4, A6 and A8, see
Fig. 1 for exact locations). In this stage, A1 and A9 were
used as validation targets for all treatments, whereas other
targets were manipulated in pairs as calibration targets (see
the following discussion). Fig. 7 presents the true (input)
spectra of the above selected calibration targets, showing
significant spectral variation, ranging from high (A2) to
low (A8) vegetation content. The treatments used in this
stage are summarized in Table 1 as: i-EL on the HATCH
data set with calibration targets presenting high spectral
diversity (A2 and A8 as calibration targets; EL-HATCH-
DIV1), j-EL on the HATCH data set with calibration
targets presenting low spectral diversity (A4 and A6 as
calibration targets; EL-HATCH-DIV2), k-EL on the
HATCH data set with calibration targets presenting low
spectral diversity with vegetation domination (A2 and A4
as calibration targets; EL-HATCH-DIV3), and l-EL on the
HATCH data set with calibration targets presenting low
spectral diversity with soil domination (A6 and A8 as
calibration targets; EL-HATCH-DIV4). Fig. 8a and b
shows the ratio spectra obtained for the two validation
sites (A1 and A9, representing 100% vegetation and 100%
soil, respectively), at each of the EL calibration targets
(treatments) used, along with their calculated ASDS values.
In all of the examined treatments, it appeared that the
recovery spectrum was better in the soil-dominant rather
than in the vegetation-dominant targets. The best result was
obtained in treatment i (large spectral differences in the
calibration [A2, A8 in calibration]) for recovery of the soil
spectrum. Nevertheless, for all of the treatments, the
difference was significantly lower than those obtained by
the HATCH code alone.
Therefore, better EL results can be obtained when the
calibration targets maintain high spectral diversity. Howev-
er, lower spectral diversity does not affect the results
significantly, as occurs when using the HATCH code alone.
Thus, if absolute reflectance recovery must be attained, it is
recommended to use good targets along the scene to
boost the model-based results. Another conclusion is that
the selection of spectrally featureless targets for the EL
correction is not a mandatory step.
3.7. EL with no field data
One of the basic goals of using model-based methods for
reflectance recovering is often related to the fact that no
ground visit to the area in question is required. Therefore,
the classical EL method has a significant limitation, since a
visit to the area is required. However, as in the EFFORT
technique, users can often select boost spectra obtained
from previous data and from existing spectra library to
correct the data. To check the feasibility of such a correc-
tion, we used the HATCH corrected data, together with the
external vegetation and soil target spectra, selected to
represent, as much as possible, the end-members in the
synthetic image, taken from the ENVI spectral library
(jhu_lib; Haplustalf 87P3468). Fig. 9 presents the spectra
of the selected library (a) versus the true (input) spectra (b)
of the calibration targets (A1 and A9 in Fig. 1, and treatment
m in Table 1). It can be seen that the selection of the targets
from the spectral library was not precise, but more or less
Fig. 7. The true (field) spectra of the four targets, selected for examining
EL feasibility under diverse spectral representation.
E. Ben-Dor et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 90 (2004) 389404 399
represented the spectral variations of the two selected end-
members. Applying the EL algorithm to the corrected
HATCH data, using A1 and A9 as calibration targets,
provided a corrected EL reflectance cube termed EL-
HATCH-EXT, where validation targets were selected as
A2, A4, A6 and A8. Fig. 10a provides the reflectance
Fig. 8. The ratio spectra of the validation targets spectra (A1, A9) against the corresponding true (field) spectra in the EL runs on the HATCH database over
the low water content zone allows examination of the diverse spectral representation of the calibration targets: (a) A6, A8 represents low spectral diversity with
soil dominant (in calibration); (b) A2, A4 represents low spectral diversity with vegetation dominant (in calibration), (c) A4, A6 represents low spectral
diversity (in calibration) and (d) A2, A8 represents high spectral diversity (in calibration). The ASDS values for each ratio are also provided.
Fig. 9. The spectra end-members of the two main components in the synthetic image, as extracted from an external library (a) and the corresponding true
(field) spectra of these targets (b).
E. Ben-Dor et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 90 (2004) 389404 400
spectra of the validation targets, along with the true (field)
spectra, while Fig. 10b provides the difference (ratio)
spectra of the validation targets. As can be seen, the
difference in all cases was significantly higher than any
treatment used so far, where a constant shift from unity was
encountered (based on different albedo characteristics of the
data sets).
In real life, users may not know quantitatively which is
a good target, and thus have to select calibration targets
that are as precise as possible, based on their best knowl-
edge. As seen in Fig. 10, the abundance trends in the
vegetation soil mixture were reasonably maintained, and
thus, we could examine the thematic results of data
obtained from such a correction. We, therefore, ran a
Fig. 10. The recovered spectra of targets A2, A4, A6 and A8 using EL on the HATCH data (a) and its ratio spectra (b) at the lower water vapor position, using
the end-members in Fig. 8a with the true (field) spectra of each target (treatment n).
Fig. 11. The abundance images using the SAM classifier and end-members presented in Fig. 9, for the best spectral recovery correction found in this study (EL-
HATCH-A, treatment b) and for the worst recovery correction EL-HATCH-EXT treatment m). The true (synthetic) image of the two selected end-members is
also provided for comparison (denoted as a, b and c, respectively, on the images).
E. Ben-Dor et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 90 (2004) 389404 401
SAM classifier on both b (the best correction treatment
found in this study) and m (the current treatment) data sets
(HATCH-EL-A and HATCH-EL-Ex, respectively) using
the 100% soil and vegetation targets as end-members
(targets A1, A9) for the SAM method (see the Materials
and method). Fig. 11ac provides the image abundance of
the vegetation and the soil end-members in each of the
treatments used (a-EL-HATCH-A, treatment b; b-EL-Ext-
A, treatment m), along with the original reflectance image
(c-True). It is apparent that a very good agreement exists
between the two data sets at most water vapor contents, but
in both, some problems arose at relatively high water vapor
levels. This observation suggests that even if the wrong
targets for calibration are selected, the results may maintain
a reasonable representation of the real spectra, and the
thematic result might not be harmed by the EL correcting
method. Although it is not recommended to do so, these
results may explain why, in many cases, EL correction
methods do provide reasonable thematic results, although
the absolute difference in such a process may be signifi-
cantly higher than a reasonable value.
We can conclude that absolute reflectance retrieval using
external boost targets, may be problematic. However,
precise knowledge of the area in question, along with a good
spectral library, may reduce difference If appropriate cali-
bration targets are selected to represent the spectral variation
in the image, then the thematic mapping will be reasonably
maintained.
4. Summary and conclusions
Even under optimal conditions, the model-based meth-
od used to recover spectral reflectance properties can
introduce relative differences of more than 40% in several
spectral regions. In reality, where other factors are in-
volved, this difference may be even higher. The external
effects that may increase the difference in recovering
reflectance information from radiance data are: electronic
noise, ground topography, variation in the sun exoatmo-
sphere solar spectra, differences in spectral and radiomet-
ric calibration, BDRF and adjacency effects. In addition,
problems in the precise location of the ground and image
calibration sites may introduce differences in the final
results. The EL method was found to be a reliable
technique, in which the original model-based difference
could be reduced to values lower than 4% especially over
areas with narrow range of water vapor content . It was
found that application of the EL to model-based correc-
tion data was much more effective than applying it to
other data, such as the original radiance. This result may
support the utilization of the inflight calibration meth-
odology and can be helpful in processes where vicarious
calibration in operational environment is taking place
(e.g., Secker et al., 2001). Use of the EFFORT method
to polish atmospherically based artifacts led to an increase
in overall spectral differences. Although applying the EL
to radiance data can be problematicif the water vapor
in the scene is homogenous, then EL correction may yield
reasonable results. It was shown that high spectral vari-
ation was not significant, targets with less spectral vari-
ation were reasonably recovered to their reflectance
values. Also, from the results it seems that the selection
of featureless targets as calibration sites is not mandatory.
We assume that precise representation of the ground
targets on the image (both spatially and spectrally) is
much more important than selection of featureless targets.
In cases where ground reference sampling is not possible,
knowledge of the area is a key factor in application of the
EL correction with external boost spectra. In this
manner, selection of targets that best represent the area
is highly recommended. If caution is used, the thematic
mapping results seem to be reasonable in all treatment
cases. In summary, applying the EL approach to atmo-
spherically corrected data using (any) targets located in
areas within similar water vapor content can significantly
recover the absolute reflectance in IS data. It should be
remembered, however, that under real IS environment, as
well as other factors which in this study were set to zero
do exist. Nevertheless, the current results provide a strong
indication of how and where EL methods should be
applied and what is the recovery limit using atmospher-
ically based models and commercially available polishing
techniques.
Acknowledgements
This work was conducted at CSES/CIRES University of
Colorado under a CIRES fellowship visiting program. The
authors are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers who
helped to sharpen the issue presented and to present the
paper better.
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