MOD2SEA: A Coupled Atmosphere-Hydro-Optical Model for the Retrieval of Chlorophyll-a from Remote Sensing Observations in Complex Turbid Waters

An accurate estimation of the chlorophyll-a (Chla) concentration is crucial for water quality monitoring and is highly desired by various government agencies and environmental groups. However, using satellite observations for Chla estimation remains problematic over coastal waters due to their optical complexity and the critical atmospheric correction. In this study, we coupled an atmospheric and a water optical model for the simultaneous atmospheric correction and retrieval of Chla in the complex waters of the Wadden Sea. This coupled model called MOD2SEA combines simulations from the MODerate resolution atmospheric TRANsmission model (MODTRAN) and the two-stream radiative transfer hydro-optical model 2SeaColor. The accuracy of the coupled MOD2SEA model was validated using a matchup data set of MERIS (MEdium Resolution Imaging SpectRometer) observations and four years of concurrent ground truth measurements (2007–2010) at the NIOZ jetty location in the Dutch part of the Wadden Sea. The results showed that MERIS-derived Chla from MOD2SEA explained the variations of measured Chla with a determination coefficient of R2 = 0.88 and a RMSE of 3.32 mg·m−3, which means a significant improvement in comparison with the standard MERIS Case 2 regional (C2R) processor. The proposed coupled model might be used to generate a time series of reliable Chla maps, which is of profound importance for the assessment of causes and consequences of long-term phenological changes of Chla in the turbid Wadden Sea area.

[1]  Seibert Q. Duntley,et al.  The Optical Properties of Diffusing Materials , 1942 .

[2]  A. Hommersom.  Dense Water and Fluid Sand: Optical properties and methods for remote sensing of the extremely turbid Wadden Sea , 2010 .

[3]  A. Lindfors,et al.  MERIS Case II water processor comparison on coastal sites of the northern Baltic Sea , 2013 .

[4]  Giuseppe Zibordi,et al.  Comparison of SeaWiFS, MODIS and MERIS radiometric products at a coastal site , 2006 .

[5]  Ronghua Ma,et al.  Validation of MERIS Case-2 Water Products in Lake Taihu, China , 2012 .

[6]  S. Maritorena,et al.  Bio-optical properties of oceanic waters: A reappraisal , 2001 .

[7]  Mhd. Suhyb Salama,et al.  Estimating total suspended matter concentration in tropical coastal waters of the Berau estuary, Indonesia , 2012 .

[8]  Annelies Hommersom,et al.  Spatial and temporal variability in bio-optical properties of the Wadden Sea , 2009 .

[9]  H. J. van der Woerd,et al.  MERIMON-2000: MERIS for water quality monitoring in the Belgian-Dutch-German coastal zone , 2001 .

[10]  David Doubilet.  Light in the Sea , 2022, World Literature Today.

[11]  G. Mercier,et al.  MEETC2: Ocean color atmospheric corrections in coastal complex waters using a Bayesian latent class model and potential for the incoming sentinel 3 - OLCI mission , 2016 .

[12]  Christiaan van der Tol,et al.  Remote Sensing of Grass Response to Drought Stress Using Spectroscopic Techniques and Canopy Reflectance Model Inversion , 2016, Remote. Sens..

[13]  K. Moffett,et al.  Remote Sens , 2015 .

[14]  G. Zibordi,et al.  Assessment of MERIS ocean color data products for European seas , 2013 .

[15]  G. Cadée,et al.  Accumulation and sedimentation of Phaeocystis globosa in the Dutch Wadden Sea , 1996 .

[16]  Chengfeng Le,et al.  Climate-driven chlorophyll-a changes in a turbid estuary: Observations from satellites and implications for management , 2013 .

[17]  David Doxaran,et al.  Spectral variations of light scattering by marine particles in coastal waters, from the visible to the near infrared , 2009 .

[18]  H. J. van der Woerd,et al.  CHL Maps of the Dutch Coastal Zone: A Case Study within the REVAMP Project , 2004 .

[19]  Carsten Brockmann,et al.  Atlas of chlorophyll-a concentration for the North Sea (based on MERIS imagery of 2003) , 2005 .

[20]  Susanne Kratzer,et al.  Satellite-based water quality monitoring for improved spatial and temporal retrieval of chlorophyll-a in coastal waters , 2015 .

[21]  Mhd. Suhyb Salama,et al.  Satellite Estimates of Wide-Range Suspended Sediment Concentrations in Changjiang (Yangtze) Estuary Using MERIS Data , 2010 .

[22]  M. S. Salama,et al.  Stochastic inversion of ocean color data using the cross-entropy method. , 2010, Optics express.

[23]  T. Schroeder,et al.  Retrieval of atmospheric and oceanic properties from MERIS measurements: A new Case‐2 water processor for BEAM , 2007 .

[24]  Menghua Wang,et al.  Retrieval of water-leaving radiance and aerosol optical thickness over the oceans with SeaWiFS: a preliminary algorithm. , 1994, Applied optics.

[25]  R. Arnone,et al.  Deriving inherent optical properties from water color: a multiband quasi-analytical algorithm for optically deep waters. , 2002, Applied optics.

[26]  Menghua Wang.  Remote sensing of the ocean contributions from ultraviolet to near-infrared using the shortwave infrared bands: simulations. , 2007, Applied optics.

[27]  R. Santer,et al.  Adjacency effects on water surfaces: primary scattering approximation and sensitivity study. , 2000, Applied optics.

[28]  Alexander Bartholomä,et al.  The role of particle aggregation/disaggregation in muddy sediment dynamics and seasonal sediment turnover in a back-barrier tidal basin, East Frisian Wadden Sea, southern North Sea , 2006 .

[29]  F. Muller‐Karger,et al.  Atmospheric Correction of SeaWiFS Imagery over Turbid Coastal Waters: A Practical Method , 2000 .

[30]  C. Mobley,et al.  Hyperspectral remote sensing for shallow waters. 2. Deriving bottom depths and water properties by optimization. , 1999, Applied optics.

[31]  Carsten Brockmann,et al.  Evaluation of MERIS products from Baltic Sea coastal waters rich in CDOM , 2013 .

[32]  M. S. Salama,et al.  Simultaneous atmospheric correction and quantification of suspended particulate matters from orbital and geostationary earth observation sensors , 2010 .

[33]  Menghua Wang,et al.  Water property monitoring and assessment for China's inland Lake Taihu from MODIS-Aqua measurements , 2011 .

[34]  H. Ridderinkhof,et al.  Tidal exchange between the North Sea and Dutch Wadden Sea and mixing time scales of the tidal basins , 1990 .

[35]  M. Kahru,et al.  Ocean Color Chlorophyll Algorithms for SEAWIFS , 1998 .

[36]  Roland Doerffer,et al.  Atmospheric correction algorithm for MERIS above case‐2 waters , 2007 .

[37]  Menghua Wang,et al.  Remote Sensing of Inherent Optical Properties : Fundamentals , 2009 .

[38]  R. Doerffer,et al.  The MERIS Case 2 water algorithm , 2007 .

[39]  Annelies Hommersom,et al.  A review on substances and processes relevant for optical remote sensing of extremely turbid marine areas, with a focus on the Wadden Sea , 2010, Helgoland Marine Research.

[40]  T. Dąbrowski,et al.  GENERATING A LONG-TERM SERIES OF SST AND CHLOROPHYLL-A FOR THE COAST OF IRELAND , 2015 .

[41]  Menghua Wang,et al.  Seawifs Postlaunch Calibration and Validation Analyses , 2013 .

[42]  Rainer Reuter,et al.  A hydrographic time series station in the Wadden Sea (southern North Sea) , 2009 .

[43]  Jacco C. Kromkamp,et al.  Phosphorus limitation during a phytoplankton spring bloom in the western Dutch Wadden Sea , 2014 .

[44]  Michael E. Schaepman,et al.  Sentinels for science: potential of Sentinel-1, -2, and -3 missions for scientific observations of ocean, cryosphere, and land , 2012 .

[45]  Rainer Reuter,et al.  PATTERNS OF SUSPENDED MATTER IN THE EAST FRISIAN WADDEN SEA: COMPARISON OF NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS WITH MERIS OBSERVATIONS , 2006 .

[46]  R. Arnone,et al.  Spectral dependence of the scattering coefficient in case 1 and case 2 waters. , 1999, Applied optics.

[47]  Mhd. Suhyb Salama,et al.  Simultaneous atmospheric correction and quantification of suspended particulate matter in the Guadalquivir estuary from Landsat images , 2015 .

[48]  W. Verhoef,et al.  Simulation of hyperspectral and directional radiance images using coupled biophysical and atmospheric radiative transfer models , 2003 .

[49]  Davide D'Alimonte,et al.  Validation of satellite ocean color primary products at optically complex coastal sites: Northern Adriatic Sea, Northern Baltic Proper and Gulf of Finland , 2009 .

[50]  Alain F. Zuur,et al.  Four decades of variability in turbidity in the western Wadden Sea as derived from corrected Secchi disk readings , 2013 .

[51]  Cédric Jamet,et al.  Challenges and New Advances in Ocean Color Remote Sensing of Coastal Waters , 2013 .

[52]  K. Ruddick,et al.  Atmospheric correction of SeaWiFS imagery for turbid coastal and inland waters. , 2000, Applied optics.

[53]  R. Pasterkamp,et al.  Mapping of the North Sea turbid coastal waters using SeaWiFS data , 2004 .

[54]  B Gentili,et al.  Diffuse reflectance of oceanic waters. II Bidirectional aspects. , 1993, Applied optics.

[55]  Stewart Bernard,et al.  The assessment of optimal MERIS ocean colour products in the shelf waters of the KwaZulu-Natal Bight, South Africa , 2013 .

[56]  S. Maritorena,et al.  Atmospheric correction of satellite ocean color imagery: the black pixel assumption. , 2000, Applied optics.

[57]  Urban Tillmann,et al.  Planktonic primary production in the German Wadden Sea , 2000 .

[58]  K. Ruddick,et al.  Comparison of three SeaWiFS atmospheric correction algorithms for turbid waters using AERONET-OC measurements , 2011 .

[59]  M. S. Salama,et al.  A hydro-optical model for deriving water quality variables from satellite images HydroSat : a case study of the Nile River demonstrating the future Sentinel-2 capabilities , 2012 .

[60]  P. Herman,et al.  Impacts of Nutrient Reduction on Coastal Communities , 2007, Ecosystems.

[61]  B. Franz,et al.  Regional and seasonal variability of chlorophyll-a in Chesapeake Bay as observed by SeaWiFS and MODIS-Aqua , 2009 .

[62]  Wouter Verhoef,et al.  Suppression of local haze variations in MERIS images over turbid coastal waters for retrieval of suspended sediment concentration. , 2010, Optics express.

[63]  L. Prieur,et al.  Absorption by dissolved organic matter of the sea (yellow substance) in the UV and visible domains1 , 1981 .

[64]  W. Verhoef,et al.  Two-stream remote sensing model for water quality mapping: 2SeaColor , 2015 .

[65]  S. Folving,et al.  Sediment classification and surface type mapping in the Danish Wadden Sea by remote sensing , 1986 .

[66]  K. Ruddick,et al.  Seaborne measurements of near infrared water‐leaving reflectance: The similarity spectrum for turbid waters , 2006 .

[67]  C. Mobley,et al.  Hyperspectral remote sensing for shallow waters. I. A semianalytical model. , 1998, Applied optics.

[68]  Menas Kafatos,et al.  Comparison of global chlorophyll concentrations using MODIS data , 2009 .

[69]  C. Mobley.  Light and Water: Radiative Transfer in Natural Waters , 1994 .

[70]  Menghua Wang,et al.  Estimation of ocean contribution at the MODIS near‐infrared wavelengths along the east coast of the U.S.: Two case studies , 2005 .

[71]  T. J. Petzold.  Volume Scattering Functions for Selected Ocean Waters , 1972 .

[72]  E. Fry,et al.  Absorption spectrum (380-700 nm) of pure water. II. Integrating cavity measurements. , 1997, Applied optics.

[73]  Annelies Hommersom,et al.  A CASE STUDY ON THE USE OF HYDROPT IN THE WADDEN SEA , 2008 .

[74]  K. Ruddick,et al.  In situ determination of the remote sensing reflectance : an inter comparison , 2012 .

[75]  M. Moradi,et al.  Spatio-temporal variability of SST and Chlorophyll-a from MODIS data in the Persian Gulf. , 2015, Marine pollution bulletin.

[76]  Giuseppe Zibordi,et al.  Assessment of satellite ocean color products at a coastal site , 2007 .

[77]  Mhd. Suhyb Salama.  Roadmap waterkwaliteit : helder beeld op troebel water , 2014 .

[78]  U. Tillmann,et al.  Distribution patterns of bacterioplankton and chlorophyll-a in the German Wadden Sea , 1999, Helgoland Marine Research.

[79]  Menghua Wang,et al.  The NIR-SWIR combined atmospheric correction approach for MODIS ocean color data processing. , 2007, Optics express.

[80]  W. Verhoef,et al.  Coupled soil–leaf-canopy and atmosphere radiative transfer modeling to simulate hyperspectral multi-angular surface reflectance and TOA radiance data , 2007 .

[81]  Cédric Jamet,et al.  Evaluation of four atmospheric correction algorithms for MODIS-Aqua images over contrasted coastal waters , 2013 .

[82]  Davide D'Alimonte,et al.  Cross-site consistent in situ measurements for satellite ocean color applications: The BiOMaP radiometric dataset , 2011 .

[83]  Davide D'Alimonte,et al.  Multi-sensor satellite time series of optical properties and chlorophyll- a concentration in the Adriatic Sea , 2011 .

[84]  Chengfeng Le,et al.  Towards a long-term chlorophyll-a data record in a turbid estuary using MODIS observations , 2013 .

[85]  S.W.M. Peters,et al.  Tracing Wadden Sea masses with an inverse bio-optical and end-member model , 2010 .

[86]  Menghua Wang,et al.  Retrieval of the seawater reflectance for suspended solids monitoring in the East China Sea using MODIS, MERIS and GOCI satellite data , 2014 .