Recovering missing pixels for Landsat ETM + SLC-off imagery using HJ-1A /1B as auxiliary data

ABSTRACT

To improve the usability of Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) scan line corrector (SLC)-off data, this article proposes using HJ-1A/1B imagery as auxiliary (i.e. reference) data to recover the SLC-off ETM+ data. The least-median-of-squares (LMedS) method is newly proposed to recover missing pixels of Landsat 7 by removing the variant or abnormal digital number values. In particular, for the visible and near-infrared bands, using HJ-1A/1B for recovery has three clear advantages: the same spatial resolution, similar spectral resolution, and approximate temporal resolution. The experiments show that all of the reference-recovery methods are better than the non-reference-recovery method. The results of using of auxiliary data in reference-recovery methods, from best to worst, are Landsat 8, HJ-1A/1B, and Landsat 7. However, for recovering missing pixels, HJ-1A/1B is superior to the ETM+ auxiliary data due to the shorter time interval in Landsat 7 (a few hours). Hence, HJ-1A/1B should be considered a useful auxiliary data to recover ETM+ SLC-off imagery data.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (grant nos. 41101407) and the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (grant nos. 2014CFB377 and 2010CDZ005), China, Morning Plan of WuHan city (grant nos.2016070204010137), China, and the self-determined research funds of CCNU from the colleges’ basic research and operation of MOE (grant no. CCNU15A02001) for supporting this work. We are grateful for the comments and contributions of the anonymous reviewers and the members of the editorial team.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (grant nos. 41101407) and the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (grant nos. 2014CFB377 and 2010CDZ005), China, Morning Plan of WuHan city (grant nos.2016070204010137), China, and the self-determined research funds of CCNU from the colleges’ basic research and operation of MOE (grant no. CCNU15A02001) for supporting this work.