Ground validation of an algorithm for estimating surface suspended sediment concentrations from multi-spectral reflectance data |
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| Authors: | Ravinder Kaur Sunita Rabindranathan |
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| Institution: | (1) Georgia Water Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, 3039 Amwiler Road, Atlanta, GA 30360, USA |
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| Abstract: | Pollution of water resources by sediments eroded from degraded watersheds is a critical concern around the world. Current methods for locating these eroding areas and off-site damage to water resources through visual observations and field sampling with subsequent laboratory analysis are time consuming and expensive. There is thus, a justified interest in developing algorithms for quick estimation of suspended sediment concentrations in large water-bodies from remotely sensed data. This paper presents the results of a ground validation study on characterization and quantification of surface suspended sediment concentrations (SSC) in sediment laden water bodies through an n-waveband specific numerical index, total information content. A comparison of SSC-predictive potential of the proposed new index, derived from four broad (100–300 nm) Landsat MSS, five broad (40–300 nm) Landsat TM and eight narrow (20–40 nm) IRS-P4 OCM spectral bands, with that of the conventional (NIR-Red and NIR+Red) indices, computed from the same spectral band data, is also presented. The study reveaied that at SSCs 250 mg/1, the proposed index (derived from either broad / narrow landsat MSS/TM or IRS-P4 OCM spectral data) could lead to SSC predictions (with mean errors within 20%) comparable with those obtained with the conventional indices (derived from the same spectral band data). It could further be observed that, in general, lower sediment concentrations (i.e. SSCs 150 mg/1) were associated with higher prediction inaccuracies. A comparison of the mean errors of predictions associated with the proposed and the conventional (NIR-Red and NIR+Red) indices computed from broad and narrow band data for SSCs 150 mg/I, revealed that an increase in number of wavebands (from 4 MSS to 5 TM or 8 OCM bands) and a decrease in the bandwidth of these wavebands (from broad MSS/ TM bands to narrow OCM bands) led to a significant increase in the prediction accuracy of the proposed new index. These prediction accuracies were observed to be the highest with the proposed index calculated from narrow OCM-P4 spectral data. However this could not be observed with the conventional indices at any of the SSC ranges and with the proposed index at SSCs 250 mg/l. This shows that the lower SSC-predictive potential of proposed index was a significant function of both the number and the bandwidth of spectral bands used for its computation. In fact in one of the cases, lower SSC (150 mg/l) -predictive accuracy of the proposed index was found to be significantly higher than that of the conventional (NIR+R) index. The proposed algorithm could thus compress the information contained in the entire reflectance spectrum of the sediment laden water bodies to their sediment type and concentration specific characteristic values. This characteristic of the proposed index was not shared by any of the conventional indices, based on only two waveband data. In fact the proposed index appears to be the only mean of completely compressing and quantifying the information contained in all the information channels of a narrow band spectrometer (consisting of 200 wavebands) to be shortly launched by ISRO for satellite based inventory of natural resources. |
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