An image decoding method according to the present invention includes: receiving information on a set of reference pictures for configuring a set of reference pictures of a current picture, wherein the information on the set of reference pictures includes the most significant bit (MSB) information that may calculate the MSB of the picture order count (POC) of a long-term reference picture relative to the current picture, and flag information that represents whether there is MSB information; and eliciting the set of reference pictures by using received MSB information when the flag information is 1, and performing marking on the reference picture, wherein the flag information may be 1 when a temporal sub-layer identifier is 0, and there is at least one POC value for which a remainder obtained by dividing by a maximum value MaxPicOrderCntLsb capable of being represented by the LSB is the same as the least significant bit (LSB) of the POC of the long-term reference picture, in a set of POCs of a previous picture including POC values related to the previous picture that may not be discarded without affecting whether other pictures of the same temporal layer may be decoded.