Modeling of Suspended Solids and Sea Surface Salinity in Hong Kong using Aqua/MODIS Satellite Images

A study was conducted in the Hong Kong with the aim of deriving an algorithm for the retrieval of suspended sediment (SS) and sea surface salinity (SSS) concentrations from Aqua/MODIS level 1B reflectance data with 250m and 500m spatial resolutions. 'In-situ' measurements of SS and SSS were also compared with coincident MODIS spectral reflectance measurements over the ocean surface. This is the first study of SSS modeling in Southeast Asia using earth observation satellite images. Three analysis techniques such as multiple regression, linear regression, and principal component analysis (PCA) were performed on the MODIS data and the 'in-situ' measurement datasets of the SS and SSS. Correlation coefficients by each analysis method shows that the best correlation results are multiple regression from the 500m spatial resolution MODIS images, R-2 = 0.82 for SS and R-2 = 0.81 for SSS. The Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) between satellite and 'in-situ' data are 0.92mg/L for SS and 1.63psu for SSS, respectively. These suggest that 500m spatial resolution MODIS data are suitable for water quality modeling in the study area. Furthermore, the application of these models to MODIS images of the Hong Kong and Pearl River Delta (PRD) Region are able to accurately reproduce the spatial distribution map of the high turbidity with realistic SS concentrations.