Lessons Learned from the SPOT4 (Take5): Experiment in Preparation for Sentinel-2
A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2015) | Viewed by 136655
Special Issue Editors
Interests: optical remote sensing; earth observation; analysis ready data; absolute calibration; cloud detection; atmospheric correction; land surface monitoring
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: remote sensing of ecosystem structure and processes; multi-temporal optical remote sensing for vegetation monitoring; radiative transfer modeling; fusion of multi-source data
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: remote sensing of forest; agriculture and land cover
Interests: time series of optical images; geometrical processing; optical satellite geometric performances
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Starting in 2015, the European Sentinel-2 Mission, developed by ESA, will be the first satellite mission ever to provide image time series with the four following features:
- High resolution images (10 to 20 m)
- Worldwide systematic coverage of all lands
- Repetitive observations every 5th day with two satellites, under constant viewing angles
- Thirteen spectral bands from visible to short wave infrared (SWIR), providing continuity to SPOT and Landsat
On top of these features, the access to Sentinel-2 data will be free and open, and the mission foresees a series of satellites each with an expected lifetime of seven years over a time period of 20 years. The Sentinel-2 will certainly foster new applications, products and services, and will enhance the accuracy of existing ones. Sentinel-2 frequent revisits will ensure that any given surface will be observed at least once a month, except in the most cloudy periods and regions, which will enable the development of various operational applications.
In order to manage time series covering very large areas and to take full advantage of the Sentinel-2 repetitive observations, new processing methods must be implemented and tested. For instance, these methods need to be able to handle large data volumes and to cope with data gaps due to clouds that will be present on most Sentinel-2 300*300 km² images. Given the large number of images taken on each site, methods will need to be automatic and the large area covered will push users to develop methods that are robust enough to work over large territories with variations in climate and land cover.
To help users get ready for the arrival of Sentinel-2 data, the French Space Agency CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales), decided to implement the SPOT4 (Take5) experiment, which took place during the first half of 2013. This experiment was joined by ESA and USGS/NASA to provide complementing data sets from the RapidEye and Landsat missions. This experiment aimed at providing time series of optical images simulating the revisit frequency, resolution and the large area of Sentinel-2 images, in order to help users set up and test their applications and methods, before the mission is launched. CNES started this experiment on January 31, 2013, and it lasted until June 19, 2013. Time series of SPOT4 images were acquired on every 5th day, over 45 sites scattered on nearly all continents, with a total of 28 acquisitions above each of the 45 sites. Over a subset of 14 sites, RapidEye acquisitions were collected at the same frequency of five days and Landsat-8 acquisitions complemented the data set starting in April with a repeat cycle of 16 days. The time series have been used for very diverse applications (land cover and land use, agriculture, phenology, hydrology, snow monitoring, coastal and lake monitoring, habitats characterization and biodiversity) and the full Take5 data set can be downloaded free of charge (SPOT4 (Take5) data, Rapid Eye (Take5) data).
This Special Issue calls for submissions that report on the lessons learned from this experiment, in terms of:
- pre-processing methods (ortho-rectification, atmospheric correction, cloud detection, monthly syntheses)
- calibration and validation of reflectance and bio-physical variables
- suitability of Sentinel-2 time series as a function of applications
- new processing methods for applications of time series of high resolution images, such as
- bio-physical variable estimates,
- land cover classification
- crop monitoring
- crop water status monitoring
- biodiversity
- estimation of vegetation biomass and yield
- production of phenology indicators
- coastal or inland water monitoring
- forest monitoring
Authors are required to check and follow specific Instructions to Authors, see https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/165068305/Remote_Sensing-Additional_Instructions.pdf.
Mr. Olivier Hagolle
Dr. Benjamin Koetz
Dr. Olivier Arino
Mrs. Sylvia Sylvander
Guest Editors
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