Estimation of Coastal Suspended Sediment Concentration using Satellite Data and Oceanic In-Situ Measurements

Suspended sediment is an important oceanic variable for monitoring changes in coastal environment related to physical and biogeochemical processes. In order to estimate suspended sediment concentration (SSC) from satellite data, we derived SSC coefficients by fitting satellite remote sensing reflectances to in-situ suspended sediment measurements. To collect in-situ suspended sediment, we conducted ship cruises at 16 different locations three times for the periods of Sep.-November 2009 and Jul. 2010 at the passing time of Landsat ETM+. Satellite data and in-situ data measured by spectroradiometers were converted to remote sensing reflectances (R-rs). Statistical approaches proved that the exponential formula using a single band of Rrs(565) was the most appropriate equation for the estimation of SSC in this study. Satellite suspended sediment using the newly-derived coefficients showed a good agreement with in-situ suspended sediment with an Root Mean Square (RMS) error of 1-3 g/m(3). Satellite-observed SSCs tended to be overestimated at shallow depths due to bottom reflection presumably. This implies that the satellite-based SSCs should be carefully understood at the shallow coastal regions. Nevertheless, the satellite-derived SSCs based on the derived SSC coefficients, for the most cases, reasonably coincided with the pattern of in-situ suspended sediment measurements in the study region.