A new index for delineating built‐up land features in satellite imagery

A new index derived from existing indices – an index‐based built‐up index (IBI) – is proposed for the rapid extraction of built‐up land features in satellite imagery. The IBI is distinguished from conventional indices by its first‐time use of thematic index‐derived bands to construct an index rather than by using original image bands. The three thematic indices used in constructing the IBI are the soil adjusted vegetation index (SAVI), the modified normalized difference water index (MNDWI) and the normalized difference built‐up index (NDBI). Respectively, these represent the three major urban components of vegetation, water and built‐up land. The new index has been verified using the Landsat ETM+ image of…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China
• NS
  Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province