关键词: Sentinel-2, 云覆盖, 影像获取概率, 时空差异, 阈值, 刀耕火种农业, 橡胶林

Abstract:

Spatial and temporal characteristics assessment of cloud coverage for optical satellite images is a prerequisite for evaluating its potential as an important remote sensing monitoring data source. Sentinel-2 A/B images have been highly valued in the aspects of land surface vegetation and ecological monitoring at different spatial scales due to their advantages of free access, multi-spectral bands (especially the introduction of red edge bands), and finer spatial (10 m/20 m) and temporal (5-day) resolutions. Compared with Landsat and other similar satellite products, cloud coverage analysis of Sentinel-2 A/B has not been reported. In this paper, the cloud of 5288 Sentinel-2 A/B images (Granule/Tile) over northern Laos from 2016 to 2018 were used to determine the appropriate threshold of cloud coverage for image acquisition probability analysis under different cloud coverage thresholds (0~100%) based on GIS, aiming to reveal the spatial-temporal difference in acquisition probability. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) Sentinel-2 A/B imagery was highly appropriate for land surface remote sensing monitoring with a cloud coverage threshold of 20% (i.e., cloud coverage is ≤ 20%). This threshold resulted in the largest monthly cumulative probability (~27.41%) of Sentinel-2 A/B images in northern Laos. (2) Using the threshold of 20% cloud coverage, the differences in monthly cumulative average acquisition probabilities of Sentinel-2 A/B images in northern Laos were consistent with the temporal distributions of dry season (November to April) and wet season (May to October). The acquisition probability was 42.91% in the dry season, with the largest in March (50.27%), followed by April and February. The fact that Sentinel-2 is featured by larger acquisition probability during the peak of dry season greatly facilitates the monitoring of dynamics in swidden agriculture and rubber plantations. The corresponding probability in the wet season was merely 11.81%, with the lowest in June (~1.26%). (3) Huge differences in monthly cumulative average acquisition probabilities of Sentinel-2 A/B images between the east and west of northern Laos were revealed. In the dry season, the image acquisition probabilities of the western provinces (e.g., Luang Namtha) were much larger than those of the eastern ones, while the situation was just the opposite in the wet season. This study can provide important reference for the large-scale (e.g. global) cloud coverage analysis of Sentinel-2 A/B images and the selection of Sentinel-2 images for monitoring land use change due to United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD) in the tropics, including swidden agriculture transformation and rubber plantation expansion.

Key words: Sentinel-2, cloud coverage, imagery acquisition probability, spatiotemporal variations, threshold, swidden agriculture, rubber plantations