Airborne infrared video radiometry as a low-cost tool for remote sensing of the environment: two mapping examples from Israel of urban heat islands and mineralogical site

In this study we examined the capability of a laboratory infrared video camera for use in remote sensing of the environment. The instrument used, INFRAMETRICS 760, was mounted onboard a Bell 206 helicopter. Under the flight conditions examined, the radiometer proved itself to be very stable and produced high-quality thermal images in a real-time mode. We studied two different environmental aspects, as follows: 1) Urban heat island of the most dense city in Israel, Tel-Aviv, and 2) lithological distribution of a well-known mineralogical site in Israel, Makhtesh Ramon. The radiometer used in both studies was able to produce a temperature presentation, rather than a gray scale from an altitude of 7,000 and 10,000 feet and at 70 knots air speed. The instrument produced a high-quality set of data in terms of signal-to-noise, stability, temperature accuracy and spatial resolution. In the Tel-Aviv case, the results showed that the urban heat island of the city can be depicted in a very high spatial and thermal resolutions domain and that a significant correlation exists between ground objects and the surrounding air temperature values. Based on the flight results, we could generated an isotherm map of the city that, for the first time, located the urban heat island of the city both in meso- and microscales. In the case of Makhtesh Ramon, we found that under field conditions, the radiometer, coupled with a VIS-CCD camera can provide significant ATI parameters of typical rocks that characterize the study area. Although more study is planned and suggested based on the current data, it was concluded that the airborne thermal video radiometry, is a promising, inexpensive tool for monitoring the environment on a real-time basis.