• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.341-350
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• 2014

Landsat images can monitor the snow-covered Earth surface variations with the ground resolution of 30m and the multi-spectral bands in the visible, NIR, SWIR and TIR spectral regions for the last 30 years. The Southern Volcanic Zone (SVZ) of Chile consists of many volcanoes, and all of the volcanoes are covered with snow at the top of mountain. Snow cover area in southern province of the SVZ of Chile (37 to $46^{\circ}S$) have been influenced by significant frontal retreats as well as eruptive activities. In this study, we have investigated the changes of the snow-cover area and snow-line elevation at Mt. Villarrica and Mt. Llaima, Chile from three Landsat images acquired on Feb. 1990, 2005 and 2011. The snow-cover areas are 13.42, 26.75 and $21.60km^2$ at Mt. Villarrica in 1990, 2005 and 2011, respectively, and 3.82, 25.12 and $8.89km^2$ at Mt. Llaima in 1990, 2005 and 2011, respectively. The snow-line elevations are 1871, 1738 and 1826m at Mt. Villarrica in 1990, 2005 and 2011, respectively, and 2007, 1822 and 1818m at Mt. Llaima in 1990, 2005 and 2011, respectively. The results indicate that both of the snow-cover and snow-line changes are strongly related with the volcanic activity change. The results demonstrate that the snow-cover area and snow-line elevation changes can be used as an indicator of the volcanic activity at Mt. Villarrica and Mt. Llaima, Chile.

• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.135-143
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• 2012

Remote sensing which observes repeatedly the whole Earth and GIS-based decision-making technology have been utilized widely in disaster management such as early warning monitoring, damage investigation, emergent rescue and response, rapid recovery etc. In addition, various countermeasures of national level to collect timely satellite imagery in emergency have been considered through the operation of a satellite with onboard multiple sensors as well as the practical joint use of satellite imagery by collaboration with space agencies of the world. In order to respond heavy snowfall disaster occurred on the east coast of the Korean Peninsula in February 2011, snow-covered regions were analyzed and detected in this study through NDSI(Normalized Difference Snow Index) considering reflectance of wavelength for MODIS sensor and change detection algorithm using satellite imagery collected from International Charter. We present the application case of National Disaster Management Institute(NDMI) which supported timely decision-making through GIS spatial analysis with various spatial data and snow cover map.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.109-126
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• 2014

We improved the Land Surface Emissivity (LSE) data (Kongju National University LSE v.2: KNULSE_v2) over the Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS) observation region using recent(2009-2012) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. The surface emissivity was derived using the Vegetation Cover Method (VCM) based on the assumption that the pixel is only composed of ground and vegetation. The main issues addressed in this study are as follows: 1) the impacts of snow cover are included using Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) data, 2) the number of channels is extended from two (11, 12 ${\mu}m$) to four channels (3.7, 8.7, 11, 12 ${\mu}m$), 3) the land cover map data is also updated using the optimized remapping of the five state-of-the-art land cover maps, and 4) the latest look-up table for the emissivity of land surface according to the land cover is used. The updated emissivity data showed a strong seasonal variation with high and low values for the summer and winter, respectively. However, the surface emissivity over the desert or evergreen tree areas showed a relatively weak seasonal variation irrespective of the channels. The snow cover generally increases the emissivity of 3.7, 8.7, and 11 ${\mu}m$ but decreases that of 12 ${\mu}m$. As the results show, the pattern correlation between the updated emissivity data and the MODIS LSE data is clearly increased for the winter season, in particular, the 11 ${\mu}m$. However, the differences between the two emissivity data are slightly increased with a maximum increase in the 3.7 ${\mu}m$. The emissivity data updated in this study can be used for the improvement of accuracy of land surface temperature derived from the infrared channel data of COMS.