Consistency analysis of GF-1 and GF-6 satellite wide field view multi-spectral band reflectance

Chinese GF-1 and GF-6 satellites are currently operational for routine Earth observation, which can acquire multi-spectral data with moderate spatial resolution, high temporal resolution and wide coverage. There are slight differences between the wide field view (WFV) sensors onboard both satellites. Therefore, consistency analysis is very necessary for the networking of GF-1 and GF-6 WFV data to enhance the observation frequency. In this study, spectral band reflectance and vegetation indices in three regions dominated by urban, cropland and grassland, and forest were used to analyze the consistency of GF-1 and GF-6 WFV data. Consistency analysis results showed that the average coefficients of determination (R-2) between GF-1 and GF-6 WFV data were 0.86, 0.88, 0.88 and 0.93 for blue, green, red and NIR bands, as well as 0.86, 0.82 and 0.6 for normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), ratio vegetation index (RVI) and soil adjusted vegetation index (SAVI), respectively. Therefore, the subtle difference and high correlation of spectral band reflectance and vegetation indices indicated that the GF-1 and GF-6 WFV data had a degree of good consistency and had the potential of networking to monitor the rapid change of the Earth surface.