Natural Hazards and Earth System Science www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net 1561-8633 1684-9981 10 1 2010 10.5194/nhess-10-89-2010 http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/10/89/2010/ http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/10/89/2010/nhess-10-89-2010.html http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/10/89/2010/nhess-10-89-2010.pdf 89 95 2010-01-14 Atmospheric correction for satellite remotely sensed data intended for agricultural applications: impact on vegetation indices D. G. Hadjimitsis d.hadjimitsis@cut.ac.cy G. Papadavid A. Agapiou K. Themistocleous M. G. Hadjimitsis A. Retalis S. Michaelides N. Chrysoulakis L. Toulios C. R. I. Clayton Cyprus University of Technology, Department of Civil Engineering and Geomatics-Remote Sensing Laboratory, Lemesos, Cyprus Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development, National Observatory of Athens, Athens, Greece Meteorological Service, Nicosia, Cyprus Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas, Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics, Heraklion, Crete, Greece National Agricultural Research Foundation, Larissa, Greece School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK Agricultural Research Institute of Cyprus, 1516, Athalassa, Nicosia, Cyprus Solar radiation reflected by the Earth's surface to satellite sensors is modified by its interaction with the atmosphere. The objective of applying an atmospheric correction is to determine true surface reflectance values and to retrieve physical parameters of the Earth's surface, including surface reflectance, by removing atmospheric effects from satellite images. Atmospheric correction is arguably the most important part of the pre-processing of satellite remotely sensed data. Such a correction is especially important in cases where multi-temporal images are to be compared and analyzed. For agricultural applications, in which several vegetation indices are applied for monitoring purposes, multi-temporal images are used. The integration of vegetation indices from remotely sensed images with other hydro-meteorological data is widely used for monitoring natural hazards such as droughts. Indeed, the most important task is to retrieve the true values of the vegetation status from the satellite-remotely sensed data. 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