Haze Detection and Removal in Remotely Sensed Multispectral Imagery

Haze degrades optical data and reduces the accuracy of data interpretation. Haze detection and removal is a challenging and important task for optical multispectral data correction. This paper presents an empirical and automatic method for inhomogeneous haze detection and removal in medium- and high-resolution satellite optical multispectral images. The dark-object subtraction method is further developed to calculate a haze thickness map, allowing a spectrally consistent haze removal on calibrated and uncalibrated satellite multispectral data. Rare scenes with a uniform and highly reflecting landcover result in limitations of the method. Evaluation on hazy multispectral data (Landsat 8 OLI and WorldView-2) and a comparison to haze-free reference data illustrate the spectral consistency after haze removal.