Remote sensing of optically active marine components

Abstract

Remote sensing is an efficient tool to monitor the aquatic ecology. The optical signature in coastal marine environment is a reflection of the complex distribution of optically active marine components. It is essential to understand the relationship between the remote sensing signal and marine constituent material to take advantage of high resolution remote sensing data available from spaceborne and airborne platforms. The objective of this research was to develop a semi-analytical forward model to predict the remote sensing optical signature in coastal waters dominated by non-planktonic material. Laboratory and in situ measurements collected over a5 year period (1998-2003) were used to compile a biogeooptical database for coastal waters. The database is exploited to realise various biogeophysical relationships. A major advancement proposed in the thesis towards the modelling of backscattering probability was the synthesis of knowledge from Mie theory and particulate composition from geochemical analysis. This approach was used to derive particulate backscattering from in situ absorption and attenuation measurements. Results show that this model can produce backscattering values in a realistic way than with a constant value as proposed by Petzold. Absorption and backscattering values derived from ac-9 measurements were used to calculate radiance reflectance and remote sensing reflectance. The biogeophysical relationships developed were incorporated into the forward optics model to successfully simulate the inherent optical property ratio. Further development of the model and applications through inversion were discussed and outlined.

Date of Award	2004
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Plymouth
Sponsors	Plymouth Marine Laboratory