Spatial Algal Bloom Characterization by Landsat 8-Oli and Field Data Analysis

Abstract

Water pollution is an important problem around the world as it is closely related to human and environmental health. Field campaigns are expensive, time consuming and may provide little information. Remote sensing provides synoptic spatio-temporal views and can lead to a better understanding of lake ecology. In this work an extreme algal bloom event which occurred in a reservoir is characterized by LANDSAT8-OLI sensor and in situ sampling. Chlorophyll-a concentration and algae abundance data are measured on samples collected simultaneously with satellite pass and used to build semiempirical models. Two linear functions to calculate chlorophyll-a from satellite data are presented and compared. A linear model from band 2 (blue) and band 5 (NIR) presents the best performance with a determination coefficient equal to 0,89. In situ and satellite chlorophyll-a lead comparable trophic class assessment, hypertrophic. Both Models fail to predict chlorophyll-a concentration near river intrusion (North), where low values of reflectance are recorded.