REFLECTANCE OF EARTH SURFACE FEATURE AND SPECTRAL SIGNATURE OF SATELLITE IMAGE

This article is prepared to understand the role of reflectance and spectral signature in a satellite image . How the reflectance vary with change in EMR and characteristics of earth surface feature . It is very important to understand that how the reflection which is received by sensor, converts into an image. It is explained in earlier article that how the reflectance taking place and its behavior of incident energy after interaction with surface . The reflectance completely depends on incident energy and characteristics of material/earth’s surface feature. So reflectance which is created during this process is called SIGNATURE . Every object on the earth surface reflects and emits incident radiation is defined as signature of that object. It can be also called re-radiation from earth surface feature. These signatures are recorded by sensor boarded on satellites . As it is understood that basically only three natural land covers , it includes vegetation, soil and