Land-sea delineation in the visible channels of Landsat thematic mapper

Abstract

Accurate coastal mapping using satellite imageries in the visible region is difficult because of the poor contrast between the radiance received from land and sea, respectively and also due to the structures present in the coastal region caused by chlorophyll, suspended sediments, etc. A method has been suggested to enhance the utility of visible imageries for precise land-sea delineation and detection of tiny islands and extraneous objects in the sea. This method is based on contrast stretching by principal component transformation of visible channels and the Martin-Taylor mapping of transformed components on a video terminal to produce false colour composites to aid visual interpretation.