DEA Surface Reflectance NBAR (Landsat 5 TM)
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Geoscience Australia Landsat 5 TM NBAR Collection 3 
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**Authored on**: 2018-03   
**Updated on**: 2022-04  
**Author/s**: Fuqin Li, David Jupp, Josh Sixsmith, Lan-Wei Wang, Passang Dorj, Alex Vincent, Imam Alam, Jeremy Hooke, Simon Oliver, Medhavy Thankappan  
**License**: CC BY Attribution 4.0 International License

View the [original metadata page](https://cmi.ga.gov.au/data-products/dea/367/dea-surface-reflectance-nbar-landsat-5-tm) for the most up-to-date information on this product.

Abstract
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*This is a sub-product of [**DEA Surface Reflectance (Landsat 5 TM)**](https://cmi.ga.gov.au/data-products/dea/358/dea-surface-reflectance-landsat-5-tm). See the parent product for more information.*

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Radiance data collected by Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) sensors can be affected by atmospheric conditions, sun position, sensor view angle, surface slope and surface aspect. These need to be reduced or removed to ensure the data is consistent and can be compared over time.

What this product offers
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This product takes Landsat 5 TM imagery captured over the Australian continent and corrects the inconsistencies across land and coastal fringes using Nadir corrected Bi-directional reflectance distribution function Adjusted Reflectance (NBAR). This consistency over time and space is instrumental in identifying and quantifying environmental change.

The resolution is a 30 m grid based on the USGS Landsat Collection 1 archive.

This product does not apply terrain illumination correction. See the sibling product [DEA Surface Reflectance NBART (Landsat 5 TM)](https://cmi.ga.gov.au/data-products/dea/477/dea-surface-reflectance-nbart-landsat-5-tm).

Accuracy and limitations
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Atmospheric correction accuracy depends on the quality of aerosol data available to determine the atmospheric profile at the time of image acquisition.

BRDF correction is based on low resolution imagery from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), which is assumed to be relevant to medium resolution imagery such as that captured by Landsat 5 TM. BRDF correction is applied to each whole Landsat 5 TM scene and does not account for changes in land cover. It also excludes effects due to topographic shading and local BRDF.

The algorithm assumes that BRDF effect for inclined surfaces is modelled by the surface slope and does not account for land cover orientation relative to gravity (as occurs for some broadleaf vegetation with vertical leaf orientation).

The algorithm also depends on several auxiliary data sources:

- Availability of relevant MODIS BRDF data
- Availability of relevant aerosol data
- Availability of relevant water vapour data
- Availability of relevant DEM data
- Availability of relevant ozone data

Improved or more accurate sources for any of the above listed auxiliary dependencies will also improve the surface reflectance result.

Publications
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- Li, F., Jupp, D. L. B., Reddy, S., Lymburner, L., Mueller, N., Tan, P., & Islam, A. (2010). An evaluation of the use of atmospheric and BRDF correction to standardize Landsat data. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 3(3), 257–270.[ https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2010.2042281](https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2010.2042281)
- Li, F., Jupp, D. L. B., Thankappan, M., Lymburner, L., Mueller, N., Lewis, A., & Held, A. (2012). A physics-based atmospheric and BRDF correction for Landsat data over mountainous terrain. Remote Sensing of Environment, 124, 756–770.[ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2012.06.018](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2012.06.018)

Contacts
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For questions or more information about this product, email [DEA Support](mailto:dea@ga.gov.au?subject=Data%20Products%20support%20for%20DEA%20Surface%20Reflectance%20NBAR%20%28Landsat%205%20TM%29&cc=David.Jupp@csiro.au,fuqin.li@ga.gov.au,Joshua.Sixsmith@ga.gov.au).