If aliens were monitoring our planet over many years, and they really liked the color green, here is a runup of places they might choose to visit.
Derived over continental-scale regions of North America, South America, Europe, West Asia, East Asia, and Australia for top of atmosphere (TOA), so as observed from space, by Landsat 8 over five years of imagery. Future work aims to examine how much the ‘greenest square km’ moves around for different time intervals. Analysis excludes very high northern latitudes and Antarctica as areas of long duration or perpetual snow/ice cover returned inconsistent results. Resolution = 1 km². Median filtered imagery to remove clouds, cloud shadows, and anomalous reflectances.
Keywords: Geography Viz, World Geography, Greenest Square Kilometer, By Continent, Landsat 8 Imagery, Green index, Top of Atmosphere, Median Filter, Europe, Crimea, Syvash Lake, Africa, Djibouti, Lac Assal, Australia, Lake George, North America, USA, California, Mono Lake, East Asia, China, Qarhan Playa, South America, Argentina, Laguna Amargas, West Asia, Tibet, Zabuye Lake
Resources:
-Landsat 8, Google Earth Engine, ArcGIS Pro, PPT, OBS Studio, OpenShot
-Color info from convertingcolors.com, incl. Behr paint ‘color names’ (over 4600 colors)
-Didn’t include for this vid; All but E. Asia were ‘Beluga’, E. Asia = ‘Black Suede’
-Maps and near community identification from various ESRI basemaps
-Populations are most recently available from Wikipedia
-Ground-level images mostly from google user content, sources by region below
Greenness is calculated as the amount of green reflected light relative to red and blue reflected light: Green index = Green / ((Red + Blue) / 2)
Details by region:
Europe
Syvash Lake, Crimea
45.468°N, 35.218°E, 0 m
Near Dmytrivka (18 km)
Near Nekrasovka (26 km)
Hex #14211F
Gindex=1.35
Africa
Lac Assal, Djibouti
11.682°N, 42.396°E, -158 m
Near Yoboki (38 km)
Near Tadjoura (55 km)
Hex #172E29
Gindex=1.44
Photo credit - Peter Watson, ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/976x549/p06cz0t8.jpg, accessed 5/30/2023
Australia
Lake George
37.389°S, 139.962°E, 0 m
Near Beachport (15 km)
Near Nora Creina (16 km)
Hex #17261C
Gindex=1.45
Photo credit - [ Ссылка ], accessed 6/3/2023
North America
Mono Lake, California
38.057°N, 118.959°W, 1944 m
Near Lee Vining (22 km)
Near Bodie (23 km)
Hex #0A1A17
Gindex=1.49
Photo credit - www.minesnewsroom.com/sites/default/files/news/photos/Mono%20Lake.jpg, accessed 5/30/2023
East Asia
Qarhan Playa, China
36.838°N, 95.262°E, 2681 m
Near Golmud (70 km)
Near Nomhom (122 km)
Hex #1F3321
Gindex=1.59
Photo credit - [ Ссылка ], accessed 6/1/2023
South America
Laguna Amargas, Argentina
26.647°S, 68.178°W, 3977 m
Near Las Peladas (44 km)
Near Loro Huasi (86 km)
Hex #1C3021
Gindex=1.65
Photo credit - neron30, lh5.googleusercontent.com/p/AF1QipPOogcRvlItMUSi0LMqU0B5OHmBVDSrG0yzhiC9, accessed 5/30/2023
West Asia
Zabuye Lake, Tibet
31.459°N, 84.060°E, 4424 m
Near Lumaringbo (110 km)
Near Donco (118 km)
Hex #1A3021
Gindex=1.68
Photo credit - youimg1.tripcdn.com/target/01003120009d1jpj13EF1.jpg, accessed 5/30/2023
Research:
Lillesand T.M., Kiefer R.W., Chipman J.W., 2015. Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation, 7th ed.: Wiley.
Jensen J. R., 2006. Remote Sensing of the Environment: An Earth Resource Perspective.
Prentice Hall.
0:00 Intro
0:10 Syvash Lake, Crimea, Europe
0:42 Lac Assal, Djibouti, Africa
1:18 Lake George, Australia
1:50 Mono Lake, California, USA, North America
2:24 Qarhan Playa, China, East Asia
2:54 Laguna Amargas, Argentina, South America
3:32 Zabuye Lake, Tibet, West Asia
4:05 Map and Conclusion
