Awesome Spectral Indices for Google Earth Engine!

A ready-to-use curated list of spectral indices for Google Earth Engine.

Spectral Indices

The ready-to-use curated list of spectral indices (check the list here) is presented here in order to compute multiple spectral indices in Google Earth Engine for different datasets. This list is used by the eemont Python package in order to compute spectral indices in the Python API and by the spectral module in order to access and compute the spectral indices in the Code Editor (JavaScript API).

Attributes

Each item of the list has the following attributes:

• short_name: Short name of the index (e.g. "NDWI").
• long_name: Long name of the index (e.g. "Normalized Difference Water Index").
• formula: Expression/formula of the index (e.g. "(N - G)/(N + G)").
• bands: List of required bands/parameters for the index computation (e.g. ["N","G"]).
• reference: Link to the index reference/paper/doi (e.g. "https://doi.org/10.1080/01431169608948714").
• type: Type/application of the index (e.g. "water").
• date_of_addition: Date of addition to the list (e.g. "2021-04-07").
• contributor: GitHub user link of the contributor (e.g. "https://github.com/davemlz").

Expressions

The formula of the index is presented as a string/expression (e.g. "(N - R)/(N + R)") that can be used by the ee.Image.expression() method in Google Earth Engine. The parameters used in the expression for each index follow this standard:

Standard variables for spectral indices expressions and satellite equivalents.

Description	Standard	Sentinel-2	Landsat 8	Landsat 457	MODIS
Aerosols	A	B1	B1
Blue	B	B2	B2	B1	B3
Green	G	B3	B3	B2	B4
Red	R	B4	B4	B3	B1
Red Edge 1	RE1	B5
Red Edge 2	RE2	B6
Red Edge 3	RE3	B7
Red Edge 4	RE4	B8A
NIR	N	B8	B5	B4	B2
SWIR 1	S1	B11	B6	B5	B6
SWIR 2	S2	B12	B7	B7	B7
Thermal 1	T1		B10	B6
Thermal 2	T2		B11

Additional index parameters also follow a standard:

• g: Gain factor (e.g. Used for EVI).
• L: Canopy background adjustment (e.g. Used for SAVI and EVI).
• C1: Coefficient 1 for the aerosol resistance term (e.g. Used for EVI).
• C2: Coefficient 2 for the aerosol resistance term (e.g. Used for EVI).
• cexp: Exponent used for OCVI.
• nexp: Exponent used for GDVI.
• alpha: Weighting coefficient used for WDRVI.
• sla: Soil line slope.
• slb: Soil line intercept.

The kernel indices are constructed using a special type of parameters:

• kAB: Kernel of bands/parameters A and B (e.g. kNR means k(N,R), where k is the kernel function).
• p: Kernel degree (used for the polynomial kernel).
• c: Free parameter that trades off the influence of higher-order versus lower-order terms (used for the polynomial kernel).

Used by

JavaScript API

• spectral

Python API

• eemont
• eeExtra (SOON)

R (rgee)

• rgeeExtra (SOON)

List

Check the full list of spectral indices here.

Download Raw Files

You can download or clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/davemlz/awesome-ee-spectral-indices.git

Or you can download the single files here (right-click > Save link as...):

• json file: Raw list
• csv file: Raw list

Credits

• César Aybar: The formidable pydantic expert and creator of rgee.