Land Surface Temperature
Suite of 16 Processing algorithms for complete Land Surface Temperature retrieval from Landsat 5/7/8 and ASTER thermal imagery
This plugin provides a complete, step-by-step workflow for deriving Land Surface Temperature (LST) from satellite thermal imagery using 16 algorithms in the QGIS Processing toolbox. It supports Landsat 5 TM, Landsat 7 ETM+, Landsat 8 TIRS, and ASTER sensors. Input imagery can be obtained free of charge from USGS EarthExplorer (earthexplorer.usgs.gov) or NASA Earthdata (earthdata.nasa.gov).
Typical applications include urban heat island analysis, drought and vegetation stress monitoring, agricultural water management, wildfire burn severity assessment, and climate and land use change studies.
Workflow:
1. Compute NDVI from red and near-infrared bands
2. Convert thermal band digital numbers to spectral radiance
3. Convert radiance to at-sensor brightness temperature using K1/K2 calibration constants
4. Estimate land surface emissivity (LSE) using NDVI-based classification
5. Retrieve land surface temperature using one of six LST algorithms
Available algorithms:
Vegetation Indices : Landsat NDVI, ASTER NDVI
Radiance : TM Radiance (L5), ETM+ Radiance (L7), TIRS Radiance (L8), ASTER Radiance
Brightness Temp. : Brightness Temperature (all sensors)
Emissivity : Zhang LSE, NDVI Threshold LSE, ASTER LSE
LST : Planck Equation, Mono-Window Algorithm (Qin et al. 2001),
Single Channel Algorithm (Jimenez-Munoz & Sobrino 2003),
Radiative Transfer Equation, ASTER Single Channel,
ASTER Split-Window
Temperature output available in Kelvin, Celsius, or Fahrenheit.