Monitoring of Enteromorpha prolifera in Qingdao marine by exploiting the synergy of active and passive remote sensing data

In late June 2008, Enteromorpha prolifera (E.P) bloomed in Qingdao marine, including Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center. The large scale and the fast extending speed of the E.P bloom were rare in history. The E.P bloomed just before Beijing 2008 Olympics, so it attracted the most attention around the world. Monitoring E.P from remote sensing data has the advantages of rapidness, wide coverage, low cost. But commonly used optical remote sensing is easily affected by cloud, which limits the monitoring timelines. In this paper, the theory of E.P monitoring from optical remote sensing and SAR remote sensing were analyzed. Then, the technical routes of E.P monitoring by exploiting the synergy of active and passive remote sensing data were presented. Because the SAR images are not affected by cloud, the timelines can be increased exploiting the by synergy of active and passive remote sensing data. MODIS and RADARSAT were used to monitor E.P. The monitoring results were used to analyze the beginning and spread of E.P. The monitoring results from MODIS and RADARSAT were compared.