Weighted Reductions

By default, reducers applied to imagery weight the inputs according to the mask value. This is relevant in the context of fractional pixels created through operations such as clip(). Adjust this behavior by calling unweighted() on the reducer. Using an unweighted reducer forces all pixels in the region to have the same weight. The following example illustrates how pixel weighting can affect the reducer output:

Code Editor (JavaScript)

// Load a Landsat 8 input image.
var image = ee.Image('LANDSAT/LC08/C02/T1/LC08_044034_20140318');

// Create an arbitrary region.
var geometry = ee.Geometry.Rectangle(-122.496, 37.532, -121.554, 37.538);

// Make an NDWI image.  It will have one band named 'nd'.
var ndwi = image.normalizedDifference(['B3', 'B5']);

// Compute the weighted mean of the NDWI image clipped to the region.
var weighted = ndwi.clip(geometry)
  .reduceRegion({
    reducer: ee.Reducer.mean(),
    geometry: geometry,
    scale: 30})
  .get('nd');

// Compute the UN-weighted mean of the NDWI image clipped to the region.
var unweighted = ndwi.clip(geometry)
  .reduceRegion({
    reducer: ee.Reducer.mean().unweighted(),
    geometry: geometry,
    scale: 30})
  .get('nd');

// Observe the difference between weighted and unweighted reductions.
print('weighted:', weighted);
print('unweighted', unweighted);

Python setup

See the Python Environment page for information on the Python API and using geemap for interactive development.

import ee
import geemap.core as geemap

Colab (Python)

# Load a Landsat 8 input image.
image = ee.Image('LANDSAT/LC08/C02/T1/LC08_044034_20140318')

# Create an arbitrary region.
geometry = ee.Geometry.Rectangle(-122.496, 37.532, -121.554, 37.538)

# Make an NDWI image.  It will have one band named 'nd'.
ndwi = image.normalizedDifference(['B3', 'B5'])

# Compute the weighted mean of the NDWI image clipped to the region.
weighted = (
    ndwi.clip(geometry)
    .reduceRegion(reducer=ee.Reducer.mean(), geometry=geometry, scale=30)
    .get('nd')
)

# Compute the UN-weighted mean of the NDWI image clipped to the region.
unweighted = (
    ndwi.clip(geometry)
    .reduceRegion(
        reducer=ee.Reducer.mean().unweighted(), geometry=geometry, scale=30
    )
    .get('nd')
)

# Observe the difference between weighted and unweighted reductions.
display('weighted:', weighted)
display('unweighted', unweighted)

The difference in results is due to pixels at the edge of the region receiving a weight of one as a result of calling unweighted() on the reducer.

In order to obtain an explicitly weighted output, it is preferable to set the weights explicitly with splitWeights() called on the reducer. A reducer modified by splitWeights() takes two inputs, where the second input is the weight. The following example illustrates splitWeights() by computing the weighted mean Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in a region, with the weights given by cloud score (the cloudier, the lower the weight):

Code Editor (JavaScript)

// Load an input Landsat 8 image.
var image = ee.Image('LANDSAT/LC08/C02/T1_TOA/LC08_186059_20130419');

// Compute cloud score and reverse it such that the highest
// weight (100) is for the least cloudy pixels.
var cloudWeight = ee.Image(100).subtract(
  ee.Algorithms.Landsat.simpleCloudScore(image).select(['cloud']));

// Compute NDVI and add the cloud weight band.
var ndvi = image.normalizedDifference(['B5', 'B4']).addBands(cloudWeight);

// Define an arbitrary region in a cloudy area.
var region = ee.Geometry.Rectangle(9.9069, 0.5981, 10.5, 0.9757);

// Use a mean reducer.
var reducer = ee.Reducer.mean();

// Compute the unweighted mean.
var unweighted = ndvi.select(['nd']).reduceRegion(reducer, region, 30);

// compute mean weighted by cloudiness.
var weighted = ndvi.reduceRegion(reducer.splitWeights(), region, 30);

// Observe the difference as a result of weighting by cloudiness.
print('unweighted:', unweighted);
print('weighted:', weighted);

Python setup

See the Python Environment page for information on the Python API and using geemap for interactive development.

import ee
import geemap.core as geemap

Colab (Python)

# Load an input Landsat 8 image.
image = ee.Image('LANDSAT/LC08/C02/T1_TOA/LC08_186059_20130419')

# Compute cloud score and reverse it such that the highest
# weight (100) is for the least cloudy pixels.
cloud_weight = ee.Image(100).subtract(
    ee.Algorithms.Landsat.simpleCloudScore(image).select(['cloud'])
)

# Compute NDVI and add the cloud weight band.
ndvi = image.normalizedDifference(['B5', 'B4']).addBands(cloud_weight)

# Define an arbitrary region in a cloudy area.
region = ee.Geometry.Rectangle(9.9069, 0.5981, 10.5, 0.9757)

# Use a mean reducer.
reducer = ee.Reducer.mean()

# Compute the unweighted mean.
unweighted = ndvi.select(['nd']).reduceRegion(reducer, region, 30)

# compute mean weighted by cloudiness.
weighted = ndvi.reduceRegion(reducer.splitWeights(), region, 30)

# Observe the difference as a result of weighting by cloudiness.
display('unweighted:', unweighted)
display('weighted:', weighted)

Observe that cloudWeight needs to be added as a band prior to calling reduceRegion(). The result indicates that the estimated mean NDVI is higher as a result of decreasing the weight of cloudy pixels.