Glacier Change Detection in GRASS GIS

Purpose

The purpose of this tutorial is to visualize and assess the change in the extent of a marine-terminating glacier in the Canadian Arctic over time. To assess the change in extent, this tutorial will demonstrate how to classify the snow/ice cover in Landsat 8/9 images using a generic Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) technique. This tutorial is

Software Download and Instillation

This tutorial is demonstrated in Windows using GRASS GIS version 8.4.0. The latest version of GRASS GIS can be downloaded here

Data Sources

This tutorial uses the green and Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) bands from 8 Landsat 8/9 images. The images were captured in late July/august when the Fiord was mostly free of ice. The Landsat imagery can be downloaded from the USGS Earth Explorer website. To download the data, create a free student account.

The ID and metadata for the specific images used in this lab can be found in the table below.

Landsat Image ID	Bands Used	Metadata
LC08_L2SP_060246_20140825_20200911_02_T1	Example	Example
LC08_L2SP_046248_20150810_20200908_02_T1	Example	Example
LC08_L2SP_057001_20160825_20200906_02_T1	Example	Example
LC08_L2SP_046248_20180802_20200831_02_T1	Example	Example
LC08_L2SP_048248_20190718_20200827_02_T1	Example	Example
LC08_L2SP_074244_20200811_20200918_02_T1	Example	Example
LC09_L2SP_046248_20220821_20230401_02_T1	Example	Example
LC08_L2SP_067245_20230819_20230826_02_T1	Example	Example
LC09_L2SP_052247_20240820_20240821_02_T1	Example	Example