Evaluation of Different Water Indices for Extraction Surface Water of AL-Hawizeh Marsh from Landsat 8 Imagery

Abstract

The Al-Hawizeh marsh, situates in southern Iraq, and it is one of the largest wetlands in the region. This study aims to identify the best method for obtaining the water surface area of Al-Hawizeh marsh using Landsat 8-Oil imagery. Five techniques are tested and evaluated based on their performance in extracting water surface area: normalized different water index (NDWI), modified normalized different water index (MNDWI), normalized different vegetation index (NDVI), normalized different moisture index (NDMI), and water index refers to short wave infra-red (RSWIR). The results demonstrate the superiority of the MNDWI technique, which achieves an overall accuracy of approximately 87.04% and a kappa coefficient of 0.792. It is recommended that this technique be applied in areas with similar conditions to efficiently extract surface water area from Landsat 8 OLI data.