Evaluation of Satellite Image Processing Techniques for SurfaceWater Extraction: A Case Study of Gorgan Bay, Iran

Surface water is one of the irreplaceable strategic resources for human survival and socialdevelopment. In this study, several satellite-derived indices including the normalizeddifference water index (NDWI), normalized difference moisture index (NDMI), modifiednormalized difference water index (MNDWI), water ratio index (WRI), and normalizeddifference vegetation index (NDVI), as well as the support vector machine (SVM)classification technique were applied on Landsat TM image to assess their performance formapping the surface water area of Gorgan Bay as the largest gulf in Caspian Sea. The resultsindicated superiority of the NDWI approach for surface water mapping in the study area.On the other hand, the NDMI index could not provide reliable result for this purpose.Therefore, the study suggests applying NDWI index in future similar studies.

Keywords:

Landsat , NDWI , Surface water , Gorgan Bay