Detection of Phytoplankton Blooms in the Turbid Coastal Waters Using Satellite-Derived Fluorescence Line Height off Kakinada Coast

• Published in: Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing Vol. 47; no. 11; pp. 1857 - 1864
• Main Authors: Umamaheswara Rao, Y., Nagamani, P. V., Baranval, N. K., Rama Rao, P., Prasada Rao, T. D. V., Choudury, S. B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Delhi Springer India 01.11.2019; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Chlorophyll; Coastal waters; Coasts; Comparative studies; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Fluorescence; MODIS; Optical activity; Phytoplankton; Plankton; Radiance; Remote Sensing/Photogrammetry; Research Article; Satellite imagery; Phytoplankton bloom; FLH; MODIS-A
• ISSN: 0255-660X; 0974-3006
• DOI: 10.1007/s12524-019-01022-5

Fluorescence line height (FLH) is a relative measure of the amount of radiance leaving the sea surface in the chlorophyll fluorescence emission band. Satellite-derived FLH images provide information about the surface chlorophyll distribution which in turn can be used for monitoring surface phytoplankton blooms in coastal waters. The present study aims at observing a phytoplankton bloom in the Kakinada coastal waters along the east coast of India using n FLH product of MODIS-A. This quasi-permanent bloom could not be precisely observed using chlorophyll concentration in the turbid coastal waters due to the presence of other optically active constituents; hence, chlorophyll fluoresce is used to study the bloom phenomenon from n FLH product of MODIS. The analysis has been carried out by analysing the spectral variability using both in situ and satellite R rs spectra over the bloom and non-bloom waters. Comparative study between in situ chlorophyll with satellite-derived FLH showed a good correlation with an R 2 of 0.43. The bloom phenomenon observed/assessed from the MODIS n FLH data showed > 0.25 W m −2  sr −1  μm in the bloom-dominated pixels. This proves that the satellite-derived n FLH can also be used as an indicator in detecting the phytoplankton blooms and also as one of the important parameters for the ocean colour applications in case-II waters.