Appropriate spatial resolution analysis based on land surface heterogeneity

In order to meet the various demands of remote sensing applications, it is still worth being discussed that whether higher resolution is necessarily better. Actually, the spatial resolution should be carefully chosen according to application demands, for optimizing the balance of effectiveness and cost. In this paper the concept of “appropriate spatial resolution” is used, which should be the spatial scale with least data volume and most interested information, while not the highest precision of information. Characterization of spatial heterogeneity is the basis of analyzing spatial structure of the image under the given spatial resolution, and it is also the basis of selection of appropriate spatial resolution. Based on the wavelet variance method to characterize spatial heterogeneity, appropriate spatial resolutions of albedo, NDVI and surface radiation temperature on the same research area are given. Results show that appropriate spatial resolutions to various retrieved physical properties are different due to different grades of spatial heterogeneity. Proper scale range will be obtained to observe certain geographic quantity, by operation of the appropriate resolution selection.