Remote sensing of aerosol optical depth over urban and rural areas from satellite and

ground-based observations

Nguyen Thi Thuy Hang and Tang-Huang Lin

Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research, National Central University

Email: thuyhangnguyen228@gmail.com

Abstract: The aerosol optical depth (AOD) can be retrieved accurately with good temporal
resolution from ground based measurements of the direct and diffuse solar radiance. However, it
has the limitation in the spatial coverage and resolution. Hence, the use of satellite image data is
a proper tool for retrieving aerosol optical depth products with higher spatial resolution and the
pattern of aerosol distribution. As for aerosol remote sensing, the optimal approach of AOD
retrieval over urban and rural areas could be different due to the characteristics of surface
reflectance. In this study, the dispersion coefficient and dark target methods are examined with
Landsat image and the observation of sun photometer (AERONET) in Taipei, Taiwan. For the
areas of bright surfaces such as urban area is applied by contrast reduction method with
accompany sun photometer in order to reduce considerably errors in the product. In contrast, the
dark target algorithm with the relationship of surface reflectance between blue (0.49 µm), red
(0.66 µm), and 2.1 µm spectral bands, is suitable for moist soils and vegetation areas. The
retrieval of AOD distribution map will be compared with MODIS AOD products for verifying
the accuracy of the result. Furthermore, this result is evaluated to analysis the relationship
between AOD and particle matter (PM).
Keywords: Aerosol optical depth, AERONET, LANDSAT, Dispersion coefficient method, Dark
target approach, MODIS AOD