Effectiveness of Using the TIR Band in Landsat 8 Image Classification

This paper discusses the effectiveness of using Landsat 8 TIR (Thermal Infrared) band images to improve the accuracy of landuse/landcover classification of urban areas. According to classification results for the study area using diverse band combinations, the classification accuracy using an image fusion process in which the TIR band is added to the visible and near infrared band was improved by 4.0%, compared to that using a band combination that does not consider the TIR band. For urban area landuse/landcover classification in particular, the producer’s accuracy and user’s accuracy values were improved by 10.2% and 3.8%, respectively. When MLC (Maximum Likelihood Classification), which is commonly applied to remote sensing images, was used, the TIR band images helped obtain a higher discriminant analysis in landuse/landcover classification.