Development of a modified bare soil and urban index for Landsat 8 satellite data

Mapping of urban area has always been a challenging task due to its similar spectral characteristics with bare soil. The spectral characteristics of urban and bare soil being similar, causes confusion and misclassification among themselves. A new modified normalized difference soil index (MNDSI) has been proposed using PAN and Band 7 of Landsat 8. PAN band of Landsat 8 provides increased contrast between vegetation and land areas without vegetation. Subsequently, MNDSI was used to develop a new normalized ratio urban index (NRUI) by enhancing the capability of biophysical composition index (BCI) in two stages. First, a ratio urban index (RUI) was developed which discriminates urban and soil better than BCI. Second, RUI was further enhanced, subsequently known as NRUI, which is able to discriminate urban area from soil even better than RUI. MNDSI and NRUI show a good discrimination between soil and urban and may be useful for such purposes.