The normalized difference water index (NDWI) of McFeeters (1996) was modified by substitution of a middle infrared band such as Landsat TM band 5 for the near infrared band used in the NDWI. The modified NDWI (MNDWI) can enhance open water features while efficiently suppressing and even removing built-up land noise as well as vegetation and soil noise. The enhanced water information using the NDWI is often mixed with built-up land noise and the area of extracted water is thus overestimated. Accordingly, the MNDWI is more suitable for enhancing and extracting water information for a water region with a background dominated by built-up land areas because of its advantage in reducing and even removing built-up land noise over the NDWI.