High-spatiotemporal-resolution land surface temperature (LST) is a crucial parameter in various environmental monitoring. However, due to the limitation of sensor trade-off between the spatial and temporal resolutions, such data are still unavailable. Therefore, the generation and verification of such data are of great value. The spatiotemporal fusion algorithm, which can be used to improve the spatiotemporal resolution, is widely used in Landsat and MODIS data to generate Landsat-like images, but there is less exploration of combining long-time series MODIS LST and Landsat 8 LST product to generate Landsat 8-like LST. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of the long-time series Landsat 8 LST product and the Landsat 8-like LST generated by spatiotemporal fusion. In this study, based on the Landsat 8 LST product and MODIS LST product, Landsat 8-like LST is generated using Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Reflectance Fusion Model (STARFM), Enhanced STARFM (ESTARFM), and the Flexible Spatiotemporal DAta Fusion (FSDAF) algorithm, and tested and verified in the research area located in Gansu Province, China. In this process, Landsat 8 LST product was verified based on ground measurements, and the fusion results were comprehensively evaluated based on ground measurements and actual Landsat 8 LST images. Ground measurements verification indicated that Landsat 8 LST product was highly consistent with ground measurements. The Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) was 2.862 K, and the coefficient of determination R² was 0.952 at All stations. Good fusion results can be obtained for the three spatiotemporal algorithms, and the ground measurements verified at All stations show that R² was more significant than 0.911. ESTARFM had the best fusion result (R² = 0.915, RMSE = 3.661 K), which was better than STARFM (R² = 0.911, RMSE = 3.746 K) and FSDAF (R² = 0.912, RMSE = 3.786 K). Based on the actual Landsat 8 LST images verification, the fusion images were highly consistent with actual Landsat 8 LST images. The average RMSE of fusion images about STARFM, ESTARFM, and FSDAF were 2.608 K, 2.245 K, and 2.565 K, respectively, and ESTARFM is better than STARFM and FSDAF in most cases. Combining the above verification, the fusion results of the three algorithms were reliable and ESTARFM had the highest fusion accuracy.

Spatiotemporal fusion methods are considered a useful tool for generating multi-temporal reflectance data with limited high-resolution images and necessary low-resolution images. In particular, the superiority of sparse representation-based spatiotemporal reflectance fusion model (SPSTFM) in capturing phenology and type changes of land covers has been preliminarily demonstrated. Meanwhile, the dictionary training process, which is a key step in the sparse learning-based fusion algorithm, and its effect on fusion quality are still unclear. In this paper, an enhanced spatiotemporal fusion scheme based on the single-pair SPSTFM algorithm has been proposed through improving the process of dictionary learning, and then evaluated using two actual datasets, with one representing a rural area with phenology changes and the other representing an urban area with land cover type changes. The validated strategy for enhancing the dictionary learning process is divided into two modes to enlarge the training datasets with spatially and temporally extended samples. Compared to the original learning-based algorithm and other employed typical single-pair-based fusion models, experimental results from the proposed fusion method with two extension modes show improved performance in modeling reflectance using the two preceding datasets. Furthermore, the strategy with temporally extended training samples is more effective than the strategy with spatially extended training samples for the land cover area with phenology changes, whereas it is opposite for the land cover area with type changes.

Since requirements of related applications for time series remotely-sensed images with high spatial resolution have been hard to be satisfied under current observation conditions of satellite sensors, it is key to reconstruct high-resolution images at specified dates. As an effective data reconstruction technique, spatiotemporal fusion can be used to generate time series land surface parameters with a clear geophysical significance. In this study, an improved fusion model based on the Sparse Representation-Based Spatiotemporal Reflectance Fusion Model (SPSTFM) is developed and assessed with reflectance data from Gaofen-2 Multi-Spectral (GF-2 MS) and Gaofen-1 Wide-Field-View (GF-1 WFV). By introducing a spatially enhanced training method to dictionary training and sparse coding processes, the developed fusion framework is expected to promote the description of high-resolution and low-resolution overcomplete dictionaries. Assessment indices including Average Absolute Deviation (AAD), Root-Mean-Square Error (RMSE), Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Correlation Coefficient (CC), spectral angle mapper (SAM), structure similarity (SSIM) and Erreur Relative Global Adimensionnelle de Synthèse (ERGAS) are then used to test employed fusion methods for a parallel comparison. The experimental results show that more accurate prediction of GF-2 MS reflectance than that from the SPSTFM can be obtained and furthermore comparable with popular two-pair based reflectance fusion models like the Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Fusion Model (STARFM) and the Enhanced-STARFM (ESTARFM).

Multi-modal remote sensing images often exhibit complex and nonlinear radiation differences which significantly hinder the performance of traditional feature-based image registration methods such as Scale-Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT). In contrast, structural features—such as edges and contours—remain relatively consistent across modalities. To address this challenge, we propose a novel multi-modal image registration method, Cof-SIFT, which integrates a co-occurrence filter with SIFT. By replacing the traditional Gaussian filter with a co-occurrence filter, Cof-SIFT effectively suppresses texture variations while preserving structural information, thereby enhancing robustness to cross-modal differences. To further improve image registration accuracy, we introduce an extended approach, Cof-SIFT_HOG, which extracts Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) features from the image gradient magnitude map of corresponding points and refines their positions based on HOG similarity. This refinement yields more precise alignment between the reference and image to be registered. We evaluated Cof-SIFT and Cof-SIFT_HOG on a diverse set of multi-modal remote sensing image pairs. The experimental results demonstrate that both methods outperform existing approaches, including SIFT, COFSM, SAR-SIFT, PSO-SIFT, and OS-SIFT, in terms of robustness and registration accuracy. Notably, Cof-SIFT_HOG achieves the highest overall performance, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed structural-preserving and corresponding point location refinement strategies in cross-modal registration tasks.

Land surface temperature (LST) is a fundamental variable of environmental monitoring and surface equilibrium. Although the HJ-1B infrared scanner (IRS) has accumulated many observations, further application of HJ-1B/IRS is limited by the lack of LST products. This study refined the ERA5 atmospheric profile database, instead of the widely used traditional TIGR atmospheric profile database, and simulated the coefficients of the generalized single-channel (GSCs) algorithms to improve LST retrieval. GSCs can be divided into the GSC_w and GSC_wT algorithms, depending on whether the input is atmospheric water vapor content (WVC) or in situ near-surface air temperature and WVC. Land surface emissivity (LSE) was obtained from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Emissivity Dataset (GED) and vegetation/snow cover products. Then, the retrieved LSTs were evaluated using the LSTs from the RTE algorithm, TIGR_w/TIGR_wT profiles, and in situ near-surface air temperature from the HiWATER experiment in China from 2012 to 2014. The bias (root mean square error (RMSE)) values are displayed as ERA5_wT < RTE < ERA5_w < TIGR_wT < TIGR_w. The accuracy of ERA5_wT, with a bias (RMSE) of 0.02 K (2.30 K), is higher than that of RTE, with a bias (RMSE) of 0.74 K (2.47 K). The accuracy of RTE is preferable to that of ERA5_w, with a bias (RMSE) of 0.89 K (2.48 K), followed by TIGR_wT, with a bias (RMSE) of −1.18 K (2.50 K), and then, TIGR_w, with a bias (RMSE) of 1.60 K (2.77 K). In summary, the accuracy of LST obtained by GSC from the refined ERA5 atmospheric profiles is higher than that obtained from the TIGR profiles. The accuracy of LST obtained by GSC_wT is greater than that obtained by GSC_w. The accuracy of LST obtained using in situ near-surface air temperature is higher than that obtained using ERA5 air temperature. The accuracy of LSE_ASTER is slightly better than that of LSE_MOD21. The aforementioned conclusions can provide scientific support to generate HJ-1B/IRS LST products.

The spatial-temporal distribution and variability of soil moisture (SM) constitutes a critical foundation for coordinating agricultural productivity, ecological preservation, and mountain flood disaster mitigation. Based on observed SM data from 27 automated monitoring stations established by the Aerospace Information Research Institute during 2022-2024 across different climatic zones in China, the temporal change patterns, spatial heterogeneity characteristics, dominant meteorological influencing factors and the respective quantitative contributions, as well as the time-lagged responses to meteorological variables in different climatic zones were analyzed systematically applying integrated methodologies combining the regional spatial-temporal analysis, principal component analysis, random forest algorithm and cross-correlation techniques. Temporally, the monthly SM in all climatic zones exhibited consistent seasonal patterns characterized by higher values in spring-summer and lower levels in autumn-winter. Notably, the tropical monsoon and subtropical monsoon climate zones displayed lower variability in monthly soil moisture fluctuations, whereas the temperate monsoon, temperate continental, and alpine plateau climate zones manifested various seasonal divergence. Spatially, the annual and seasonal SM exhibited a declined characteristic from southeastern to northwestern regions. Conversely, the coefficient of variation of SM presented an inverse pattern with enhanced variability along the same direction. Generally, the relationship between SM and soil depth was optimally modeled closely aligned with quadratic regression, demonstrating both initially increasing and then slightly decreasing trend and monotonically increasing trend with increasing depth. The meteorological variables on SM ranked the descending order of significance were mean temperature, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, precipitation, net solar radiation intensity, and mean wind speed. Simultaneously, the minimum temperature emerged as the highest contribution to SM in different soil layers. The meteorological forcing contributions in different climate zones displayed significant spatial heterogeneity affected by soil texture, vegetation type and topography. Meanwhile, the hydroclimatic response mechanisms were found that the temperature exhibited prolonged time-lagged effects on SM ranging from 21 to 101 days, whereas the precipitation manifested rapid coupling with merely 2 to 6 days.