Integration of ALOS PALSAR and Landsat-7 ETM+ data for buried lineaments
extraction at the Farafra Oasis, Egypt
Abstract
In the last few years, ALOS/PALSAR (L-band) (HH, HV, VH and VV) images
have been widely used due toits ability to penetrate the surface in
certain conditions for example of low moisture or dry friable sandysoil.
Images from ALOS-1 sensor have been applied to delineate subsurface
structures. Optical imagessuch as Landsat-7 ETM+ data are used to
discriminate between scatterings from earth surface andsubsurface
materials. Thus, Farafra desert is an optimal environment for L-band
microwave penetration.Therefore, this research involves mapping and
interpretation of lineaments, surface and subsurfacestructures. The
interested four spots at Farafara sand sheets display many structures
that not have beentraced in the Egyptian official geological maps.
Speckle noise is found in radar images due to many reasons, for example,
when an object stronglyreflected between itself and the spacecraft
causing noise. Refined LEE Filter (RLF) is applied for specklenoise
reduction; speckle noise near strong edges is not strongly filtered,
leaving the center of the pixelunfiltered, so, this procedure is an
essential step in processing of polarimetric data to improve theaccuracy
of the data and enhance resolution. ALOS/PALSAR data are processed into
circular polarizationfor providing the best viewing of morphological and
subsurface lineaments. The ellipse shape governed bytwo axes; semi-major
axis ‘a’ and semi-minor axis ‘b’. Orientation angle(ψ) is measured
frompositive horizontal axis X counter clockwise direction, orientation
angle range from 0° to 180°. Ellipticity(χ) is a shape parameter defined
by the degree of oval shape, defined by χ=arctanb/a and can takevalues
between -45° to +45°. As, the circular polarization yielded best outputs
of subsurface structure indifferent trends, full polarimetric
ALOS/PALSAR images (PLR) are transformed into circular polarization,
bychanging both angles into orientation angle ψ=0° and elliptical angle
χ=45°. Full polarimetric images arerepresented in Pauli RGB. Landsat-7
ETM+ data are freely uploaded with the same date and location
ofALOS/PALSAR images. Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 are merged together,
then bands (R:2, G:4, B:7) arechanged to obtain best spatial resolution.
Landsat-7 images have some gap areas, which is essentially befilled with
Landsat-7 data acquired at the same time of the year by histogram
matching technique to fillthe missed pixels of the interested target
scenes according to Landsat 7. The obtained rose diagramshows two trends
of dominant and secondary; the most dominant direction is North West (NW
330°),while the secondary trend is North (North 10°). This result is
confirmed by the field survey. The dominantdirection of lineaments
extracted from ALOS/PALSAR images is well fitted with the secondary
direction ofthe geological structure in the study area. This work
represents a stage of achievement in detecting buried lineaments covered
by sand sheets byusing ALOS/PALSAR and Landsat-7 ETM+. Surface and
subsurface