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Approach to developing numeric water quality criteria for coastal waters: a transition from SeaWiFS to MODIS and MERIS satellites.
Citation:
Schaeffer, B., Jim Hagy, AND R. Stumpf. Approach to developing numeric water quality criteria for coastal waters: a transition from SeaWiFS to MODIS and MERIS satellites. Journal of Applied Remote Sensing. SPIE/International Society for Optical Engineering, Bellingham, WA, 7(1):1-18, (2013).
Impact/Purpose:
Present an approach to coastal numeric nutrient criteria development using satellite remote sensing.
Description:
Human activities on land increase nutrient loads to coastal waters, which can increase phytoplankton production and biomass and potentially cause harmful ecological effects. States can adopt numeric water quality criteria into their water quality standards to protect the designated uses of their coastal waters from eutrophication impacts. The first objective of this study was to provide an approach for developing numeric water quality criteria for coastal waters based on archived SeaWiFS ocean color satellite data. The second objective was to develop an approach for transferring water quality criteria assessments to newer ocean color satellites such as MODIS and MERIS. Spatial and temporal measures of SeaWiFS, MODIS, and MERIS chlorophyll-a (ChlRS-a, mg m-3) were resolved across Florida’s coastal waters between 1998 and 2009. Annual geometric means of SeaWiFS ChlRS-a were evaluated to determine a quantitative reference baseline from the 90th percentile of the annual geometric means. A method for transferring to multiple ocean color sensors was implemented with SeaWiFS as the reference instrument. The ChlRS-a annual geometric means for each coastal segment from MODIS and MERIS were regressed against SeaWiFS to provide a similar response among all three satellites. Standardization factors for each coastal segment were calculated based on differences between 90th percentiles from SeaWiFS to MODIS and SeaWiFS to MERIS. This transfer approach allowed for future assessments with MODIS and MERIS, typically with <7% difference in the calculated criteria. The proposed satellite remote sensing approach to derive numeric criteria and continue assessments may be generally applicable to coastal waters.
URLs/Downloads:
Approach to developing numeric water quality criteria for coastal waters: a transition from SeaWiFS to MODIS and MERIS satellites.