AIR QUALITY MAPPING USING BASED ON LANDSAT TM

BAND RATIO TECHNIQUE

H. S. Lim, M. Z. MatJafri, K. Abdullah, N. Mohd. Saleh and A. N. Alias

School of Physics,
Universiti Sains Malaysia,
11800 Penang, Malaysia
E-mail: hslim@usm.my, mjafri@usm.my, khirudd@usm.my, nasirun@usm.my
Tel: +604-6533888, Fax: +604-6579150

ABSTRACT: This study uses an empirical model, based on actual air quality of particulate
matters of size less than 10 micron (PM10) measurements from the Penang, Malaysia to predict
PM10 based on optical properties of satellite digital imagery. The data used in this study was a
Landsat TM imagery. The proposed algorithm is based on the reflectance model that is a
function of the inherent optical properties of the atmosphere, which can be related to its
constituent’s concentrations. PM10 measurements were collected by using a DustTrak meter
simultaneously with the satellite image acquisition. The PM10 measurements locations were
determined by using a handheld GPS. The digital numbers for each band corresponding to the
PM10 measurements locations were extracted and then converted into radiance values and
reflectance values. The surface reflectance values in the visible bands, (red and blue), were
retrieved from dark targets using their relationship with the mid-infrared band data at 2.1 micro
meter. The atmospheric reflectance values were obtained by subtracting the surface reflectance
from the satellite observed reflectance values. The atmospheric reflectance values were later
used for PM10 mapping using the calibrated algorithm. The efficiency of the proposed algorithm
was investigated based on the computed correlation coefficient (R) and root-mean-square
deviations (RMS) compared with the sea-truth data. The PM10 map was color-coded and
geometrically corrected for visual interpretation. This study indicates that PM10 mapping can be
carried out using remote sensing technique over Penang, Malaysia.

KEYWORDS: Air Quality, PM10, Landsat TM

1. INTRODUCTION
Air pollution causes a number of health problems and it has been linked with illnesses and deaths
from heart or lung diseases. Nowadays, air quality is a major problem in many developed
countries. Malaysia has a network for monitoring air quality levels in our environment. A
network is composed of static measuring stations, which allow continuous measurements of air
pollution parameters. Air pollution causes a number of health problems and it has been linked
with illnesses and deaths from heart or lung diseases.
 Air pollution in Asian cities has grown with the progressing industrialization and
urbanization. Air quality standards often refer to respirable suspended particulate matter (PM),
being aerosols with a diameter smaller than 10 µm (PM10). The generated algorithm was based
on the aerosol optical depth. The aerosol optical thickness in the visible can be used as an air
quality indicator in urban areas because:

• The problem of particulate pollution is very important at present especially after new
scientific evidence on health effects caused by small particles.
• The presence of particles in the atmosphere always causes a reduction of the extinction
coefficient. This reduction is strongly correlated with the concentration of small particles.
• During photochemical pollution episodes, light extinction is due to particles, while only
the yellow-brownish coloration of the smog is due to NO2 (Sifakis, et al., 1998).

Daily remote sensing of aerosol from satellite over the land and ocean is essential to
obtain the global aerosol budget to estimate the contribution of anthropogenic emission to the
aerosol budget and to the aerosol radiative forcing of climate. Because of the short lifetime of
aerosol particles and the corresponding strong spatial variations in the aerosol concentration,
ground-based stations cannot assess trends in the global aerosol budget (Kaufman, et. al., 1997).
Particular matter (PM), or aerosol, is the general term that was used for a mixture of the solid
particles and the liquid droplets found in the atmosphere (Wang and Christopher, 2003).
In this study, an algorithm that has been developed was used for the retrieval of PM10
over the Penang Island. The efficiency of the proposed algorithm was determined based on the
correlation coefficient (R) and root-mean-squares deviation, RMS. The proposed algorithm was
used to generate air quality maps over Penang, Malaysia.

2. STUDY AREA
The study area is Penang Island, Malaysia, located within latitudes 5o 12’ N to 5o 30’ N and
longitudes 100o 09’ E to 100o 26’ E (Figure 1). The corresponding satellite track for the TM
scene is 128/56. The Landsat TM imageries used in this study was acquired on 9th March 2006.
The corresponding PM10 measurements were collected simultaneously during the satellite
overpassed the study area.
 Figure 1: The location of the study area

3. ALGORITHM MODEL
An algorithm was developed for PM10 determination. The independent variables are the TM
visible bands reflectance and thermal infrared band signals. The equation is given below.
A = e0 + e1 Ratm1 + e 2 R atm 3 (1)
where
A = Particle concentration (PM10)
Ratmi= atmopsheric reflectance, i = 1 and 3 are the band number
ej= algorithm coefficients, j = 0, 1, 2, … are then empirically determined.

The atmospheric reflectance due to molecule, Rr, is given by (Liu, et al., 1996)

τ r Pr (Θ)
Rr = (2)
4μ s μ v
where
τr = Aerosol optical thickness (Molecule)
Pr( Θ ) = Rayleigh scattering phase function
µv = Cosine of viewing angle
µs = Cosine of solar zenith angle

We assume that the atmospheric reflectance due to particle, Ra, is also linear with the τa [King,
et al., (1999) and Fukushima, et al., (2000)]. This assumption is reasonable because Liu, et al.,
(1996) also found the linear relationship between both aerosol and molecule scattering.
 τ a Pa (Θ)
Ra = (3)
4μ s μ v

where
τa = Aerosol optical thickness (aerosol)
Pa( Θ ) = Aerosol scattering phase function

Atmospheric reflectance is the sum of the particle reflectance and molecule reflectance, Ratm,
(Vermote, et al., 1997).

Ratm=Ra+Rr (4)
where
Ratm=atmospheric reflectance
Ra=particle reflectance
Rr=molecule reflectance

⎡τ P (Θ) τ r Pr (Θ) ⎤
R atm = ⎢ a a + ⎥
⎣ 4μ s μ v 4μ s μ v ⎦
1
R atm = [τ a Pa (Θ) + τ r Pr (Θ)] (5)
4μ s μ v

The optical depth is given by Camagni and Sandroni, (1983), as in equation (6). From the
equation, we rewrite the optical depth for particle and molecule as equation (7)

τ = σρs (6)
where
τ = optical depth
σ = absorption
ρ = density
s= finite path

τ = τ a + τ r (Camagni and Sandroni, 1983).

τ r = σ r ρr s (7a)
τ p =σ pρps (7b)
Equations (7) are substituted into equation (5). The result was a two bands algorithm as equation
shown in equation (8).Form the equation; we found that PM10 was linearly related to the
reflectance for band 1 and band 3. This algorithm was generated based on the linear relationship
between τ and reflectance. Retalis et al., (2003) also found that the PM10 was linearly related to
the τ and the correlation coefficient for linear was better that exponential in their study (overall).
This means that reflectance was linear with the PM10. In this study, we are replacing the density
with the concentration of pollutant, G in the calculation below.

1
R atm = [σ a ρ a sPa (Θ) + σ r ρ r sPr (Θ)]
4μ s μ v

R atm =
s
[σ a ρ a Pa (Θ) + σ r ρ r Pr (Θ)]
4μ s μ v

R atm (λ1 ) =
s
[σ a (λ1 ) PPa (Θ, λ1 ) + σ r (λ1 )GPr (Θ, λ1 )]
4μ s μ v

R atm (λ 2 ) =
s
[σ a (λ 2 ) PPa (Θ, λ 2 ) + σ r (λ 2 )GPr (Θ, λ 2 )]
4μ s μ v
P = a 0 R atm ( λ 1 ) + a 1 R atm ( λ 2 ) (8a)

So, equation (8a) can be modified into equation (8b) as given below

A = e0 + e1 Ratm1 + e 2 R atm3 (8b)

where
A = Particle concentration (PM10)
Ratmi= atmospheric reflectance, i = 1 and 3 are the band numbers
ej= algorithm coefficients, j = 0, 1, 2 and 3 are then empirically determined.
We attempted to investigate the contribution from the thermal band. So, equation (8) can be

modified into equation (9) as given below

P = e0 + e1 Ratm1 + e2 Ratm3 + e3 DN 6 (9)

where
DN6 = the digital number for thermal infrared band

4. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

All image-processing analysis was carried out using PCI Geomatica version 9.1.8 digital image
processing software at the School Of Physics, University Sains Malaysia (USM). The Landsat
TM satellite image was rectified using the second order polynomial coordinates transformation
to relate groud control points in the map to their equivalent row and column positions in the
Landsat TM scences. A nearest neighbour geometric correction method was applied to produce a
geocode image to ensure that the digital numbers of the image remained the same.
 The Digital number (DN) for each location of PM10 was determined for all the two
visible bands and thermal band using a 3 by 3 window size to reduce any noise on the image.
The locations were determined with reference to the selected ground control points (GCP) used
in the image-to-map rectification method using the PCI Geomatica software. We examined the
data to determine a relationship between satellite data in the visible bands and thermal band with
the ground-based measurements in this study. This developed algorithm used a combination of
visible and thermal infrared data in accordance with the model used by Ung, et al., (2003).
The DN values corresponding to the ground truth data were extracted from all the images
and then converted into radiance and reflectance values. Then the digital numbers for the two
visible bands were converted to radiance and reflectance values. It should be noted that the
relfectance values at the top of atmospheric was the sum of the surface reflectance and
atmosphere relfectance. In this study, the surface reflectance was retrieved using dark targets
technique. For the dark targets technique, the surface reflectance in mid-infrared band is related
to those in the visible bands. The surface reflectances were measured using a handheld
spectroradiometer in the wavelength range of visible wavelengths (red and blue bands). The
surface reflectances of dark targets in the visible bands are as follows:

ρ(TM1) = ρ(TM7)/4.26
ρ(TM3) = ρ(TM7)/2.11 (10)

For each visible band, the dark target surface reflectance was estimated from that of the
mid-infrared band. The reflectance measured from the satellite [reflectance at the top of
atmospheric, ρ(TOA)] was subtracted by the amount given by the surface reflectance to obtain
the atmospheric reflectance. And then the atmospheric reflectance was related to the PM10 using
the regression algorithm analysis. In this study, Landsat TM signals were used as independent
variables in our calibration regression analyses. The PM10 maps were generated using the
proposed calibrated algorithm. Finally, the PM10 map was also filtered to minimize noise and
colour-coded for visual interpretation (Figure 2).
 Figure 2: Map of PM10 around Penang Island, Malaysia [Blue < 40 μg/m3, Green = (40-80)
μg/m3, Yellow = (80-120) μg/m3, Orange = (120-160) μg/m3, Red = (>160) μg/m3) and Black =
Land]

5. CONCLUSION
A high accuracy PM10 was generated in this study by using Landsat TM satellite image over
Penang Island. A good agreement was found in this study between PM10 measured by the
DustTrak Aerosol Monitor 8520 and PM10 estimated using the newly proposed developed
algorithm. The result produced by this study indicated that the high resolution Landsat TM
satellite image was useful for air quality studies.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project was carried out using the USM short term grants and Science Fund. We would like
to thank the technical staff who participated in this project. Thanks are extended to USM for
support and encouragement.

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