Abstract:It can get the space-time distribution characteristics of surface water bodies quickly and effificiently through remote sensing technology. There are many remote sensing image extraction methods that can be used for the extraction of inland water bodies.However, for different types of waters, which method is better is worth exploring. ChoosingTianjianLake (water body with shallow water level), Xushui River (water body with deep water level) and Yellow River (high sand content) as research objects, which satellite imagery comes from GF-2, Landsat8and SPOT5, it uses different methods such asNormalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to extract the water area.By analyzing the extraction effect, it can draw the following conclusions. ForTianjian Lake, which water level is shallow, the NDWI is the better method to extract the water area basing on the satellite imagery from GF-2and Landsat8. And the single-band threshold methodhas the worst extraction resultbasing on the satellite imagery from the three satellites. For XushuiRiver, which water level is deep, the NDVI is the best method to extract the water area basing on the satellite imagery from GF-2and Landsat8, while the single-band threshold methodhastheworst result. For the Yellow River waters with largesand content and small water bodies, NDWIhasabetterresult than other methods, andthe single-band threshold methodhastheworst result.The results show that when using water remote sensing images to extract water bodies, the type of waters should be fifirst identifified to adopt a suitable recognition algorithm.