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NDVI, NDBI & NDWI Calculation Using Landsat 7, 8

Article · September 2018

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Tek Bahadur Kshetri

Asian Institute of Technology
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GeoWorld Volume II
NDVI, NDBI AND NDWI CALCULATION USING LANDSAT 7 AND 8
Tek Bahadur Kshetri
teksondada@gmail.com

Introduction: during classification.

Remote sensing data are primary sources for analyze Generally, Landsat data are used for classification.
environmental processes in local or global scale. Landsat data having several bands based on their
These data are used to find out change detection in wavelength (blue band, green band, red band, infrared
recent decades. Remote sensing data (such as Landsat band, thermal band, panchromatic). Panchromatic
data, Sentinel data, Spot image etc.) are very useful band is used for increase the resolution of data. Landsat
for visualization, classification and analyzation 7 data having total of 8 band while Landsat 8 data
of area. These data can be categorized based on having 11 bands. For analysis of Normal Difference
their resolution, electromagnetic spectrum, energy Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normal Difference Built-
source, imaging media and number of bands. Higher up Index (NDBI) and Normal Difference Water Index
the resolution of satellite data (spatial resolution, (NDWI), only four bands are used (Green, Red,
spectral resolution, radiometric resolution, temporal NIR, SWIR). Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 data’s bands,
resolution), higher degree of accuracy will achieve wavelength & their resolution are given below.
S.N. Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mappers Band Landsat 8 Operational Land Imagers
Plus (ETM +) (OLI) & Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS)
Resolution Wa v e l e n g t h Band Name Band Name Wa v e l e n g t h R e s o l u t i o n
(meter) (micrometer) (micrometers) (meter)
1 30 0.45-0.52 Blue Band 1 Ultra-Blue 0.435-0.451 30
2 30 0.52-0.60 Green Band 2 Blue 0.452-0.512 30
3 30 0.63-0.69 Red Band 3 Green 0.533-0.590 30
4 30 0.77-0.90 NIR Band 4 Red 0.636-0.673 30
5 30 1.55-1.75 SWIR 1 Band 5 NIR 0.851-0.879 30
6 60* (30) 10.40-12.50 Thermal Band 6 SWIR 1 1.566-1.651 30
7 30 2.09-2.35 SWIR 2 Band 7 SWIR 2 2.107-2.294 30
8 15 0.52-0.90 Panchromatic Band 8 Panchromatic 0.503-0.676 15
9 Band 9 Cirrus 1.363-1.384 30
10 Band 10 TIRS 1 10.60-11.19 100 * (30)
11 Band 11 TIRS 2 11.50-12.51 100 * (30)
Table 1. Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 data bands with their resolution and wavelength.
This article is about three major land cover classes; axis (fig. 1). This curve will visualize the formula of
vegetation, water bodies and build-up area using NDVI, NDBI, NDWI.
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI),
Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) &
Normalized Difference Build up Index (NDBI)
respectively. The spectral reflectance curve helps to
understand these indexes.

Spectral reflectance curve:

Spectral reflectance curve shows the relationship
between electromagnetic spectrum (distribution of
the continuum of radiant energies plotted either as
a function of wavelength or of frequency) and the Figure 1: Spectral Reflectance Curve
associated percent reflectance for any given material. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
It is plotted in a chart that represent wavelengths in (NDVI):
horizontal axis and percent reflectance in the vertical The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)

32 Geomatics for Sustainable Development

Volume II
is the most commonly used vegetation index for
observe greenery globally. Other commonly used
vegetation indices Enhanced Vegetation Index
(EVI), Perpendicular Vegetation Index (PVI), Ration
Vegetation Index (RVI).
In general, Healthy vegetation is good absorber
of electromagnetic spectrum in visible reason.
Chlorophyll contains in a greenie highly absorbs Blue
(0.4 - 0.5 µm) and Red (0.6 - 0.7 µm) spectrum and
reflects Green (0.5 – 0.6 µm) spectrum. Therefore, our
eye perceives healthy vegetation as green. Healthy
plants having high reflectance in Near Infrared (NIR)
between 0.7 to 1.3 µm (fig. 1). This is primarily due
to internal structure of plant leaves. High reflectance
in NIR and high absorption in Red spectrum, these
two bands are used to calculate NDVI. So, following
formula gives Normalized Difference Vegetation
Index (NDVI).
GeoWorld
Built-up Index (IBI), Enhanced Built-up and Bareness
Index (EBBI) are most common indexes for analysis
the built-up areas. These different indexes having
their own formula, own calculation method. The
build-up areas and bare soil reflects more SWIR than
NIR. Water body doesn’t reflect on Infrared spectrum.
In case of greenie surface, reflection of NIR is higher
than SWIR spectrum (Fig 1). For better result, you can
use Built-up Index (BU). Build-up Index is the index
for analysis of urban pattern using NDBI and NDVI.
Built-up index is the binary image with only higher
positive value indicates built-up and barren thus,
allows BU to map the built-up area automatically.

BU = NDBI - NDVI
Image classification technique (supervised
classification and unsupervised classification) is
lengthy and complex process. It requires compositive
NDVI = (NIR – Red) / (NIR + Red) band & apply numbers of operation for the final
For Landsat 7 data, NDVI = (Band 4 – Band 3) / result. The accuracy derived from image classification
(Band 4 + Band 3) technique depends on the image analyst & method
For Landsat 8 data, NDVI = (Band 5 – Band 4) / followed by analyst. However, NDBI calculation is
(Band 5 + Band 4) simple and easy to derived. NDVI can be calculated
The NDVI value varies from -1 to 1. Higher the value by following formula.
of NDVI reflects high Near Infrared (NIR), means NDBI = (SWIR – NIR) / (SWIR + NIR)
dense greenery. Generally, we obtain following result: For Landsat 7 data, NDBI = (Band 5 – Band 4) / (Band
NDVI = -1 to 0 represent Water bodies 5 + Band 4)
NDVI = -0.1 to 0.1 represent Barren rocks, sand, or For Landsat 8 data, NDBI = (Band 6 – Band 5) / (Band
snow 6 + Band 5)
NDVI = 0.2 to 0.5 represent Shrubs and grasslands or Also, the Normalize Difference Build-up Index
senescing crops value lies between -1 to +1. Negative value of NDBI
NDVI = 0.6 to 1.0 represent Dense vegetation or represent water bodies where as higher value represent
tropical rainforest build-up areas. NDBI value for vegetation is low.
The NDVI rate can be calculated using raster
calculator in ArcGIS. Normalized Difference Water Index
(NDWI):
Normalized Difference Built-up Index Normalize Difference Water Index (NDWI) is use for
(NDBI): the water bodies analysis. The index uses Green and
There are lots of indexes for the analysis of built-up Near infra-red bands of remote sensing images. The
area. Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI), NDWI can enhance water information efficiently in
Built-up Index (BU), Urban Index (UI), Index-based most cases. It is sensitive to build-up land and result
Geomatics for Sustainable Development 33
GeoWorld
in over-estimated water bodies. The NDWI products
can be used in conjunction with NDVI change
products to assess context of apparent change areas.
Water bodies having low reflectance only reflects
within visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Water bodies in their liquid state are generally high
reflectance on Blue (0.4 - 0.5 µm) spectrum than
Green (0.5 -0.6 µm) and Red (0.6 – 0.7 µm) spectrum.
Clear water having greatest reflectance in the blue
portion of the visible spectrum. So, water appear blue.
Turbid water has higher reflectance in visible
spectrum. There is no reflection in Near Infrared
(NIR) and beyond. NDWI is developed by McFeeters
(1996) to enhance the water related features of the
landscapes. This index uses the near infrared (NIR)
and the Short-Wave infrared (SWIR) bands. NDWI
can be calculated by following formula:
Volume II
References:
Bhatta, B. (2011). Remote sensing and GIS: Second
edition. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press.
Y. Zha, J. Gao & S. Ni (2003) Use of normalized
difference built-up index in automatically mapping
urban areas from TM imagery, International
Journal of Remote Sensing, 24:3, 583-594, DOI:
10.1080/01431160304987
Crippen, R.E. (1990). Calculating the vegetation
index faster: Remote sensing of Enviromnment, 34,
71-73.
Gao. “NDWI—A normalized difference water index
for remote sensing of vegetation liquid water from
space.” 1996.
Chunyang He, Peijun Shi, Dingyong Xie &
Yuanyuan Zhao (2010). Improving the normalized
difference build-up index to map urban built-up
areas using a semiautomatic segmentation approach,
Remote Sensing Letters, 1:4, 213-221, DOI:
10.1080/01431161.2010.481681
Xu, H. (2007): Extraction of urban built-up
land features from Landsat imagery using a
thematic-oriented index combination technique.
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing.
73: 1381-1391.

NDWI = (NIR – SWIR) / (NIR + SWIR)

For Landsat 7 data, NDWI = (Band 4 – Band 5) /
(Band 4 + Band 5)
For Landsat 8 data, NDWI = (Band 5 – Band 6) /
(Band 5 + Band 6)
But result appear form above formula is poor in
quality. The pure water neither reflects NIR nor
SWIR. The formula of NDWI then modified by Xu
(2005). It uses Green and SWIR band.

MNDWI = (Green – SWIR) / (Green + SWIR)

For Landsat 7 data, NDWI = (Band 2 – Band 5) /
(Band 2 + Band 5)
For Landsat 8 data, NDWI = (Band 3 – Band 6) /
(Band 3 + Band 6)
Similarly, Normalize Difference Water Index (NDWI)
value lies between -1 to 1. Generally, water bodies
NDWI value is greater than 0.5. Vegetation has much
smaller values which distinguishing vegetation from
water bodies easily. Build-up features having positive
values lies between 0 to 0.2.

34 Geomatics for Sustainable Development

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