When I access Earth Explorer, I have the option for downloading images for both Landsat 8 Collection Level-1 and Level-2.
For Level-2 I have a brief description that refers to "Surface Reflectance".
I have some troubles on understanding the procedures for image correction and need the images with less need for corrections (dark object subtraction, surface reflectance, etc.)
I need this data for mining mapping.
What is the advisable Level for download?
Best Answer
It looks like surface reflectance data is what you are looking for. It's been atmospherically corrected so the consistency between different images is much higher. One thing i'd like to remind you is that if you are going to use not only Landsat 8 but also other Landsat surface reflectance data (eg Landsat 4/5/7), the algorithms they used to produce these surface reflectance products are different (LaSRC vs LEDAPS). But if Landsat 8 is all you need then you don't need to worry about it.