Spectral Signature Concepts Typical Spectral Reflectance Charactristics Of Water, Vegetation And Soil

SPECTRAL SIGNATURE CONCEPTS-TYPICAL SPECTRAL REFLECTANCE CHARACTRISTICS OF WATER, VEGETATION AND SOIL:

A basic assumption made in remote sensing is that a specific target has anindividual and characteristic manner of interacting with incident radiation. The manner of interaction is described by the spectral response of the target. The spectral reflectance curves describe the spectral response of a target in a particular wavelength region of electromagnetic spectrum, which, in turn depends upon certain factors, namely, orientation of the sun (solar azimuth), the height of the Sun in the sky (solar elevation angle), the direction in which the sensor is pointing relative to nadir (the look angle) and nature of the target, that is, state of health of vegetation.

Fig 1.8 Spectral reflectance Curve

Every object on the surface of the earth has its unique spectral reflectance.Fig. 1.8 shows the average spectral reflectance curves for three typical earth's features: vegetation, soil and water. The spectral reflectance curves for vigorous vegetation manifests the "Peak-and-valley" configuration. The valleys in the visible portion of the spectrum are indicative of pigments in plant leaves. Dips in reflectance (Fig. 1.8) that can be seen at wavelengths of 0.65 .µm, 1.4 µ m and 1.9 µm are attributable to absorption of water by leaves. The soil curve shows a more regular variation of reflectance. Factors that evidently affect soil reflectance are moisture content, soil texture, surface roughness, and presence of organic matter. The term spectral signature can also be used for spectral reflectance curves. Spectral signature is a set of characteristics by which a material or an object may be identified on any satellite image or photograph within the given range of wavelengths. Sometime&,spectral signatures are used to denote the spectral response of a target.

The characteristic spectral reflectance curve Fig1.8 for water shows thatfrom about 0.5µm , a reduction in reflectance with increasing wavelength, so that in the near infrared range, the reflectance of deep, clear water is virtually a zero (Mather, 1987). However, the spectral reflectance of water is significantly affected by the presence of dissolved and suspended organic and inorganic material and by thedepth of the water body. Fig. 1.8 shows the spectral reflectance curves for visible and near-infrared wavelengths at the surface and at 20 m depth. Suspended solids

in water scatter the down welling radiation, the degree of scatter being proportional to the concentration and the color of the sediment. Experimental studies in the field and in the laboratory as well as experience with multispectral remote sensing have shown that the specific targets are characterized by an individual spectral response. Indeed the successful development of remote sensing of environment over the past decade bears witness to its validity. In the remaining part of this section, typical and representative spectral reflectance curves for characteristic types of the surface materials are considered. Imagine a beach on a beautiful tropical island. of electromagnetic radiation with the top layer of sand grains on the beach. When an incident ray of electromagnetic radiation strikes an air/grain interface, part of the ray is reflected and part of it is transmitted into the sand grain. The solid lines in the figure represent the incident rays, and dashed lines 1, 2, and 3 represent rays reflected from the surface but have never penetrated a sand grain. The latter are called specular rays by Vincent and Hunt (1968), and surface-scattered rays by Salisbury and Wald

(1992); these rays result from first-surface reflection from all grains encountered. For a given reflecting surface, all specular rays reflected in the same direction, such that the angle of reflection (the angle between the reflected rays and the normal, or perpendicular to the reflecting surface) equals the angle of incidence (the angle between the incident rays and the surface normal). The measure of how much electromagnetic radiation is reflected off a surface is called its reflectance, which is a number between 0 and 1.0. A measure of 1.0 means the 100% of the incident radiation is reflected off the surface, and a measure of 0 means that 0% is reflected.