{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,28]],"date-time":"2026-03-28T06:40:34Z","timestamp":1774680034298,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":50,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,5]],"date-time":"2020-05-05T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1588636800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Remote Sensing"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The soiling of solar panels from dry deposition affects the overall efficiency of power output from solar power plants. This study focuses on the detection and monitoring of sand deposition (wind-blown dust) on photovoltaic (PV) solar panels in arid regions using multitemporal remote sensing data. The study area is located in Bhadla solar park of Rajasthan, India which receives numerous sandstorms every year, carried by westerly and north-westerly winds. This study aims to use Google Earth Engine (GEE) in monitoring the soiling phenomenon on PV panels. Optical imageries archived in the GEE platform were processed for the generation of various sand indices such as the normalized differential sand index (NDSI), the ratio normalized differential soil index (RNDSI), and the dry bare soil index (DBSI). Land surface temperature (LST) derived from Landsat 8 thermal bands were also used to correlate with sand indices and to observe the pattern of sand accumulation in the target region. Additionally, high-resolution PlanetScope images were used to quantitatively validate the sand indices. Our study suggests that the use of freely available satellite data with semiautomated processing on GEE can be a useful alternative to manual methods. The developed method can provide near real-time monitoring of soiling on PV panels cost-effectively. This study concludes that the DBSI method has a comparatively higher potential (89.6% Accuracy, 0.77 Kappa) in the detection of sand deposition on PV panels as compared to other indices. The findings of this study can be useful to solar energy companies in the development of an operational plan for the cleaning of PV panels regularly.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/rs12091466","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,7]],"date-time":"2020-05-07T03:10:38Z","timestamp":1588821038000},"page":"1466","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":39,"title":["Google Earth Engine for the Detection of Soiling on Photovoltaic Solar Panels in Arid Environments"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"12","author":[{"given":"Hitesh","family":"Supe","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Graduate School of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0810, Japan"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3653-5771","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ram","family":"Avtar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Graduate School of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0810, Japan"},{"name":"Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0810, Japan"}]},{"given":"Deepak","family":"Singh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Geography and Resource Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong, China"}]},{"given":"Ankita","family":"Gupta","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0814, Japan"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6852-145X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ali P.","family":"Yunus","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5930-199X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jie","family":"Dou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Niigata 940-2188, Japan"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5104-9782","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ankit","family":"A. Ravankar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Division of Human Mechanical Systems and Design, Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-8628, Japan"}]},{"given":"Geetha","family":"Mohan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, United Nations University (UNU-IAS), Tokyo 150-8925, Japan"}]},{"given":"Saroj Kumar","family":"Chapagain","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, United Nations University (UNU-IAS), Tokyo 150-8925, Japan"}]},{"given":"Vivek","family":"Sharma","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation Limited (RRECL), Jaipur 302001, Rajasthan, India"}]},{"given":"Chander Kumar","family":"Singh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Energy and Environment, TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi 110070, India"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8049-1724","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Olga","family":"Tutubalina","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Geography, Moscow State University, Leninskiye Gory, 119991 Moscow, Russia"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5881-2568","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ali","family":"Kharrazi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Advanced Systems Analysis Group, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria"},{"name":"CMCC Foundation\u2014Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change and Ca\u2019 Foscari University of Venice, 30175 Venice, Italy"},{"name":"Faculty of International Liberal Arts Global Studies Program, Akita International University, Yuwa City, Akita 010-1292, Japan"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,5,5]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Avtar, R., Tripathi, S., Aggarwal, A.K., and Kumar, P. 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