Rivers and other freshwater systems play a crucial role in ecosystems, industry, transportation and agriculture. Despite the > 40 years of inland water observations made possible by optical remote sensing, a standardized reflectance product for inland waters is yet forthcoming. The aim of this work is to compare the standard USGS land surface reflectance product to two Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 aquatic remote sensing reflectance products over the Amazon, Columbia and Mississippi rivers. Landsat-8 reflectance products from all three routines are then evaluated for their comparative performance in retrieving chlorophyll-a and turbidity in reference to shipborne, underway in situ validation measurements. The land surface product shows the best agreement (4% Mean Absolute Percent Difference) with field measurements of radiometry collected on the Amazon River and generates 36% higher reflectance values in the visible bands compared to aquatic methods (ACOLITE and SeaDAS) with larger differences between land and aquatic products observed in Sentinel-2 (0.01 sr −1 ) compared to Landsat-8 (0.001 sr −1 ). Choice of atmospheric correction routine can bias Landsat-8 retrievals of chlorophyll-a and turbidity by as much as 59% and 35% respectively. Using a more restrictive time window for matching in situ and satellite imagery can reduce differences by 5-31% depending on correction technique. This work highlights the challenges of satellite retrievals over rivers and underscores the need for future optical and biogeochemical research aimed at improving our understanding of the absorbing and scattering properties of river water and their relationships to remote sensing reflectance. sediment loading, warming and eutrophication (Whitehead et al., 2009;Malmqvist et al., 2008). In terrestrial, ocean, coastal and lake ecosystems, satellites have been increasingly marshalled for ecological monitoring (Smith, 2003;Valerio et al., 2017), yet rivers have received relatively little attention in the field of aquatic remote sensing, in part
Groom et al. Satellite Ocean Colour to end-users. Example applications of the ocean-colour data are presented, focusing on the climate data record and operational applications including water quality and assimilation into numerical models. Current capacity building and training activities pertinent to ocean colour are described and finally a summary of future perspectives is provided.
Human activity and natural climate trends constitute a major threat to coral reefs worldwide. Models predict a significant reduction in reef spatial extension together with a decline in biodiversity in the relatively near future. In this context, monitoring programs to detect changes in reef ecosystems are essential. In recent years, coral reef mapping using remote sensing data has benefited from instruments with better resolution and computational advances in storage and processing capabilities. However, the water column represents an additional complexity when extracting information from submerged substrates by remote sensing that demands a correction of its effect. In this article, the basic concepts of bottom substrate remote sensing and water column interference are presented. A compendium of methodologies developed to reduce water column effects in coral ecosystems studied by remote sensing that include their salient features, advantages and drawbacks is provided. Finally, algorithms to retrieve the bottom reflectance are applied to simulated data and actual remote sensing imagery and their performance is compared. The available methods are not able to completely eliminate the water column effect, but they can minimize its influence. Choosing the best method depends on the marine environment, available input data and desired outcome or scientific application.
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