Grazer Schriften der Geographie und Raumforschung Band 45/ 2010

187
Topographic correction of satellite images for
improved LULC classification in alpine areas
P. Freder
Z_GIS Centre for Geoinformatics, Salzburg, Austria
pp. 187 - 194
Abstract
Automated land use / land cover (LULC) classication is hampered in areas of high relief due to shadowing effects,
which results in different values for one and the same land cover class. The purpose of this study was to reduce the
topographic effect of Landsat TM images in a mountainous study area in Tibet. Different methods of topographic
normalization (cosine correction, Minnaert correction, C-correction and statistic-empirical correction) were evaluated
and compared visually and statistically concerning quality and usability in order to improve the following LULC clas-
sication.
KEY WORDS: topographic correction, land use / land cover (LULC) classication, Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM)
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geo 10th International Symposium on High Mountain Remote Sensing Cartography
1. Introduction
The operational use of remote sensing data is often limi-
ted due to sensor variation, atmospheric effects as well
as topographically induced illumination effects (Ekstrand
1996, Twele and Erasmi 2005). Topographic normalization
is therefore, especially in rough terrain, important for im-
proving analysis of remote sensing data (e. g. image classi-
cation). Although numerous topographic normalization
methods have been proposed in the past, none of them
has been found to be universally applicable, and therefore
topographic normalization is still a pre-processing issue
rarely used.
The intensity of illumination on the surface depends on
the orientation of the surface in respect to the sun. Diffe-
rent slope and aspect angles are inducing variable illumi-
nation angles and thus diverse reection values. Areas of
high relief therefore show high radiometric variation. De-
pending on topography reection values within one land
cover type can vary a lot. The illumination variations result
in lower reection values in the shadow and higher values
in the sun for the same land cover class. Hence, reection
values of different land cover types in equal conditions of
illumination can be more similar than within one land co-
ver type in shadow and sun, leading to problems in image
segmentation and possible misclassications (Twele and
Erasmi 2005, Civco 1989). Topographic normalization me-
thods try to compensate for the topographically induced
illumination variations in advance.
2. Study area
The study area, which was dened within the project
BrahmaTWinn, is located as part of the Brahmaputra (in
Tibet called Yarlung Tsangpo) catchment in Tibet (China)
and represents the catchment of the Lhasa River. The ma-
jor part of the area is situated in the prefecture-level city
Lhasa and a minor part in the prefecture Naqu (Fig. 1). The
total area is about 33.000 km
2
. The mountainous study
Figure 1: study area catchment of the Lhasa River in Tibet (Chi-
na).
area is characterised by steep slopes and rugged terrain
with elevations ranging from 3.500 to more than 7.000
meters. These conditions create signicant shadowing ef-
fects in the data.
The vegetation in the study area is mainly alpine grass-
land, minor parts are covered by shrubland, pasture, bu-
shland, arable land and a very small part by forest. A rela-
tively high portion of the land cover can be attributed to
non-vegetated areas, mainly bare ground, ice and snow.
3. Topographic correction methods
The simplest method for compensating the topographic
induced variable illumination is building of band ratios
wherefore no additional data is required. It is based on the
assumption that the relative topographic effect is similar
in all bands and the quotient of two bands can compen-
sate for this. This method does not account for the diffuse
irradiance, which depends on each band, and therefore
can only partly compensate the topographic effect, pro-
vided that the atmospheric path radiance is eliminated in
advance (Ekstrand 1996). A further disadvantage in terms
of multispectral classication is the loss of spectral resolu-
tion when using band ratios (Riao et al. 2003).
Real topographic correction methods try to model the illu-
mination characteristics of a horizontal surface by means
of a DEM. For this purpose it is required to calculate the
local solar incident angle (i), the angle between the cur-
rent position of the sun (depending on solar zenith angle
and solar azimuth) and the local surface (terrain slope and
aspect) (see Fig. 2).
Figure 2: Angles necessary for computing the incident angle
(based on Teillet et al. 1982).
189
raum
Petra Freder
The illumination (cos i) can be computed as follows:

angle aspect
angle azimuth solar
angle zenith solar
angle slope
angle incident solar local
where
) ' ( cos sin sin cos cos cos
=
=
=
=
=
+ =
a'
a
z
e
i
a a z e z e i
The value of cos i varies from -1 to +1, whereas a value <
0 indicates shadowed slopes, which do not receive direct
irradiance (Ekstrand 1996).
3.1. Lambertian and non-Lambertian
methods
The topographic correction methods can be classied in
two categories according to their assumption of reection
characteristics of surfaces: Lambertian and non-Lamberti-
an methods. Lambertian methods like the cosine correc-
tion are assuming a surface, which reects the incident
radiation in all directions equally, neglecting the atmos-
pherical inuences.
Non-Lambertian methods are actually not physically ba-
sed but try to model the diffuse irradiance by means of
constants of the bidirectional reectance distribution
function (BRDF), which describes reection characteristics
of surfaces. The amount of the correction depends on the
wavelength. So the assessment of the constants for each
band separately is required. The topographic effect is the-
reby most dominant in the near infrared band (Civco 1989).
As reection characteristics are related to the land cover,
the constants should also be calculated for each land co-
ver individually (Twele and Erasmi 2005, Teillet et al. 1982,
Bishop et al. 2003), resulting in a respectable effort.
3.2. Cosine correction
The cosine correction, which neglects the diffuse irradi-
ance, only considers the solar zenith angle and the local
solar incident angle for computation of the local illumina-

angle incident solar local
angle zenith solar
surface inclined an of e reflectanc
surface horizontal a of e reflectanc
where
cos
cos
=
=
=
=
=
i
z
L
L
i
z
L L
T
H
T H
tion:
This method is frequently used because of its implemen-
tation in many software programs but it strongly over-es-
timates the inuence of direct irradiance in areas of high
incident angles and is therefore problematical for steep
and sun-averted slopes, which appear brighter than sun-
facing slopes (Civco 1989, Twele and Erasmi 2005, Teillet
et al. 1982, see chapter 6).
3.3. Minnaert correction
The most common non-Lambertian topographic correc-
tion method is the Minnaert correction, which is based
on the ideas of Minnaert (1941), who initially proposed a
semi-empirical equation for describing the roughness of
the moons surface.
The Minnaert correction extends the cosine correction as
follows:

constant Minnaert
angle incident solar local
angle zenith solar
surface inclined an of e reflectanc

where
cos
cos
surface horizontal a of e reflectanc
=
=
=
=
=
|
.
|

\
|
=
k
i
z
L
L
i
z
L L
T
H
k
T H
The constant k models the extent, to which a surface is
Lambertian. It is determined by linear regression between
reection values of the input image (LH) and the angles (i
and e). The value of k lies between 0 and 1, whereas 1 cha-
racterises a Lambertian surface.
3.4. C-correction
This semi-empirical approach, developed by Teillet et al.
(1982), is similar to the Minnaert correction. The factor c
should model the diffuse irradiance and compensate the
overcorrection effects of the cosine correction (Twele et al.
2006). The factor c can be derived from the quotient of the
gradient and intercept from the regression line:

i L b
i L m
b i m L
m
b
c
i
z
L
L
c i
c z
L L
T
T
T
T
H
T H
cos : line regression of intercept
cos : line regression of gradient
cos for
angle incident solar local
angle zenith solar
surface inclined an of e reflectanc
e
where
cos
cos
surfac horizontal a of e reflectanc
=
=
+ = =
=
=
=
=
+
+
=
3.5. Statistic-empirical correction
The statistic-empirical correction is a regression-based
approach which assumes a linear correlation between the
reection of each band (LT) and the illumination (cos i)
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geo 10th International Symposium on High Mountain Remote Sensing Cartography
(Twele and Erasmi 2005, Meyer et al. 1993). The equation
also contains the gradient and intercept of the regression
line:
A disadvantage of this method is the inclusion of a class
average since the topographic correction has to be applied
to each land cover type separately, resulting in a time-con-
suming effort.
4. Data and methods
4.1. Satellite data
The study area is covered by 5 Landsat TM scenes (with
30 m spatial resolution). The Landsat images acquired
from GLCF (http://glcf.umiacs.umd.edu) have been cor-
rected geometrically and transformed into the coordinate
system UTM WGS 84, Zone 46 North within the project
BrahmaTWinn. All Landsat TM scenes are cloud free. The
acquisition dates vary in years and seasons (see Table 1).
The images taken in September have good illumination
conditions, whereas in the winter images (November)
steep areas are fully shady due to the low sun elevation
angle. But these images cover only a minor part of the stu-
dy area (see Fig. 3).
4.2. Digital elevation model (DEM)
For the topographic normalization and the following ob-
ject-based LULC classication, a SRTM (Shuttle Radar To-
pography Mission) with 90 m spatial resolution has been
available already corrected and calibrated within the pro-
ject BrahmaTWinn.
As the quality of the topographic normalization is highly
depending on the spatial resolution of the DEM the resolu-
tion should be at least as ne as the satellite image (Civco
1989). The SRTM is therefore suboptimal for topographic
correction of Landsat TM data, but the availability of high
resolution DEMs is - especially in remote areas - often limi-
ted. In this study the result could be improved by resam-
pling the SRTM to the resolution of the satellite image by
a bilinear interpolation algorithm. The nearest neighbor
algorithm is not adequate for resampling to a smaller cell
size, because it results in a stair stepped effect around di-
agonal lines and curves (Leica Geosystems 2003).

ion investigat under cover type land the of e reflectanc average
line regression of intercept
band for line regression of gradient
angle incident solar local
surface inclined an of e reflectanc
surface horizontal a of e reflectanc
where
cos
=
=
=
=
=
=
+ =
T
k
T
H
T k T H
L
b
k m
i
L
L
L b m i L L
Figure 3: Landsat TM scenes and proportion of the study area on
the scenes.
4.3. Topographic corrections tested
For reducing the topographic effect cosine-correction,
Minnaert correction, statistic-empirical correction and C-
correction were tested. Two different software programs
- ERDAS Imagine and PG-Steamer - were used for the
computation. In ERDAS Imagine the cosine correction and
Minnaert correction are incorporated, whereas the value
of constant k has to be specied by the user. The software
program PG-Steamer provides the cosine correction, the
Minnaert correction, the C-correction and the statistic-
empirical correction. The factor c for the C-correction is
calculated automatically, the Minnaert correction, howe-
ver, also requires the input of constant k. According to M-
kel et al. (2004) the constant k can also be determined
by visual interpretation. The constants were estimated as
shown in Tab. 2.
The statistic-empirical correction implemented in PG-
Steamer requires the input of the average reectance
from each land cover type in each band. As previous clas-
Table 1: Details on Landsat scenes.
path / row
acquisition
date
cloud cover
(%) solar azimuth solar zenith
137/038 14-Sep-88 0 132 52
137/039 14-Sep-88 0 130 53
137/040 1-Nov-90 0 148 41
138/039 14-Sep-91 0 128 52
138/040 14-Nov-90 0 147 36
Table 2: Estimated Minnaert constants.
band 1 2 3 4 5 7
Minnaert
constant 0.22 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.25 0.3
191
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Petra Freder
sication was not intended, the average reectance value
of each band was used to test this method.
5. Results
The results of the different topographic methods were
analysed visually and statistically.
The visual analysis clearly indicates that the cosine cor-
rection strongly overcorrects weakly illuminated areas
like slopes facing away from the sun whereas they ap-
pear brighter than sun-facing slopes. Instead of reducing
spectral variances, the normalized image appears more
distorted. As already observed in other studies (Meyer et
al. 1993, Twele et al. 2006) the C-correction, the Minnaert
correction and the statistic-empirical correction visually
do not show major differences and could successfully re-
duce the topographic effect (see Fig. 4), which implicates
the loss of the three-dimensional impression. Overcorrec-
tion of mountain ridges, where illumination is very low,
is also here evident. A higher resolution of the DEM could
compensate the topographic effect better, whereby also
smaller illumination variations could be corrected.
5.1. Statistical Analyses
Spectral differences between original and topographic
normalized image should be low, otherwise it would be
a sign of over- or undercorrection. Slopes facing away
from the sun should get higher values, sun-facing slopes
respectively lower values. An effective topographic correc-
Figure 4: Visual results of topographic correction methods (subset of Landsat TM 138/039, band combination 4-3-2).
tion should reduce spectral variances and standard devia-
tion and retain the mean (Law and Nichol 2004).
The cosine correction also shows in the statistical compa-
rison the worst result. Instead of reducing the standard
deviation, there are even more spectral variances pro-
duced (Tab. 3). The C-correction could reduce standard
deviation more effectively than the Minnaert correction,
whereas the Minnaert correction could better retain the
mean. The statistic-empirical correction provides the best
statistical result with lowest deviation of the mean value
and highest reduction of standard deviation in all bands
although only the mean of each band instead of the mean
for each land cover class was used for computation.
In order to approve the results, the topographic correction
methods have also been calculated on another subset.
The statistic-empirical correction again revealed the best
statistical result for vegetated areas. The reason for this
could be that there are only minor differences of vegetati-
on in the study area.
6. Constraints
6.1. Overcorrection
The overcorrection of the cosine correction is a well-known
phenomenon. In many cases, however, an overcorrection
of low illuminated pixels with low value of cos i can be
detected in non-Lambertian methods too (cf. Riao et al.
2003, Meyer et al. 1993, Twele et al. 2006, Teillet et al. 1982,
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geo 10th International Symposium on High Mountain Remote Sensing Cartography
Ekstrand 1996). These areas have a high proportion of dif-
fuse irradiance, the direct irradiance approximates zero.
Due to an insufcient estimation of the diffuse irradiance
the value is highly adjusted upwards.
Areas where cos i is zero, get no data values, as a division
by zero is impossible (see Equation 1). In areas of low sun
elevation angles or very steep slopes a huge amount of pi-
xels can be affected by this problem. In this case it has to
be appreciated if the topographic normalization still pro-
vides more advantages than disadvantages.
Within the study area this problem occurred in the win-
ter images (Fig. 5). As they have only a very small part on
the study area (Fig. 3), these areas were classied as sha-
dow. Mkel et al. (2004) avoid this problem by marginally
changing the sun zenith angle. Other methods for solving
this problem could be the smoothing of the slope, as sug-
gested by Riao et al. (2003) or the substitution of the no-
data values with the original values.
band
cosine correction statististic-empirical correction C-correction Minnaert-correction

1 32.76 13.63 -0.59 -0.61 1.34 -0.03 0.36 0.87
2 16.39 7.79 -0.55 -0,6 0.96 0.2 0.56 0.65
3 19.4 7.53 -0.58 -1.07 1.75 0.11 1.5 0.58
4 28.09 11.02 -0.58 -1.54 2.2 -0.58 2.08 -0.14
5 37.22 9.74 -0.61 -3.48 4.72 -1.91 0.85 -1.12
7 17.8 5.32 -0.57 -1.85 2.49 -0.74 1.06 -0.15
total change 151.66 55.03 -3.48 -8.55 13.46 -2.95 6.41 0.69
Table 3: Change of mean () and standard deviation () of the reection values from different topographic correction methods respecting
the original satellite image (Landsat TM 138/039).
Figure 5: Falsely corrected areas in terms of no data values.
6.2. Cast shadow
Areas of sun-facing slopes, which are lying in the cast sha-
dow of surrounding topographic features, are handled
within the topographic correction methods as non-sha-
dowed slopes (Leica Geosystems 2003, Meyer et al. 1993,
Twele et al. 2006). The reection values are adjusted
downwards as cos i is high although these areas do not
receive any direct solar irradiance (Fig. 6).
The topographic effect can therefore not be corrected
from steep areas - like deep valleys - and cast shadowed
slopes. By means of a shaded relief areas of low irradiance
(cos i <= 0) can be detected and a line-of-sight algorithm
Figure 6: Exemplary situation of cast shadow.
193
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Petra Freder
can identify pixels lying in cast shadow (Leica Geosystems
2003).
7. Conclusion
The visual as well as statistical analysis clearly indicated
that the cosine correction is not suitable for normalizing
the topographic effect in the study area. Minnaert correc-
tion, C-correction and statistic-empirical correction proved
to successfully reduce topographically induced illuminati-
on variations. Overcorrection, however, also occurs in are-
as of low illumination due to the inadequate estimation of
the diffuse irradiance as well as the insufcient resolution
of the DEM.
Visual estimation of the Minnaert constant is not a very
robust method, not transferable and furthermore time-
consuming. The statistic-empirical correction revealed
surprisingly the best statistical result although the mean
of each band instead of each land cover type was inclu-
ded.
As already mentioned, topographic normalization should
be applied to single land cover types due to their speci-
c reection characteristics. This, however, requires the
identication of the land cover types in advance, which
is rather the aim of the subsequent classication. Hence,
this method turns out to be a vicious circle and results in a
time-consuming application.
Some authors (Twele and Erasmi 2005, Bishop et al. 2003,
Herold et al. 2000) suggest dividing the image according
to the NDVI. Further research is required for testing this
recommendation and comparing the topographic norma-
lization with land cover dependent constants and with
global constants.
Topographically normalized satellite images can, in gene-
ral, obtain better classication results (Meyer et al. 1993,
Colby 1991, Riao et al. 2003, Twele et al. 2006). The lack
of standardized methods, however, makes the application
difcult. There are several software programs offering
topographic normalization methods, however, most wi-
thout automatically computation of constants, requiring
previous knowledge about topographic normalization
and therefore hampering the widespread use of topogra-
phic normalization.
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Correspondence to:
PETRA FREDER
Z_GIS Centre for Geoinformatics
University of Salzburg
Schillerstrae 30, A-5020 Salzburg, Austria
e-mail: petra.fuereder@sbg.ac.at