Assessment and Evaluation of Band Ratios, Brovey and HSV Techniques for Lithologic Discrimination and Mapping Using Landsat ETM⁺ and SPOT-5 Data

Abstract

This study aims to assess and to evaluate band ratios, brovey and HSV (Hue-Saturation-Value) techniques for discrimination and mapping the basement rock units exposed at Wadi Bulghah area, Saudi Arabia using multispectral Landsat ETM + and SPOT-5 panchromatic data. FieldSpec instrument is utilized to collect the spectral data of diorite, marble, gossan and volcanics, the main rock units exposed at the study area. Spectral profile of diorite exhibits very distinguished absorption features around 2.20 μm and 2.35 μm wavelength regions. These absorption features lead to lower ing the band ratio values within the band-7 wavelength region. Diorite intrusions appear to have grey and dark grey image signatures on 7/3 and 7/2 band ratio images respectively. On the false color composite ratio image (7/3:R; 7/2:G and 5/2:B) , diorite, marble, gossan and volcanics have very dark brown, dark blue, white and yellowish brown image signatures respectively. Image fusion between previously mentioned FCC ratio image and high spatial resolution (5 meters) SPOT-5 panchromatic image is carried out by using brovey and HSV transformation methods. Visual and statistical assessment methods prove that HSV fus ed image yields best image interpretability results rather than brovey image. It improves the spatial resolution of the original FCC ratios image with acceptable spectral preservation.