Deriving Fluxes of Suspended Particulate Matter in the Humber Estuary, UK, Using Airborne Remote Sensing

This study exploits the use of airborne remote sensing for the assessment of coastal and estuarine environments, in particular the Humber Estuary. A Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager was used to acquire a series of flightlines across the mouth of the Humber estuary during the flood on 10 August 1995. The flightlines encompassed the flux curtain, which consists of five moorings set out across the estuary to monitor flux of Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM). The images were radiometrically, atmospherically and geometrically corrected and SPM concentrations in surface waters derived. SPM flux was assessed by incorporating image-derived SPM concentration values with velocity results from a hydrodynamic model. These results were integrated over depth and an estimate of total flux determined for a 2-h section of the flood.