Mapping of Marine Chl-a and Suspended Solid Concentration Using OCM-2 Sensor

Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and Suspended Solid Concentration (SSC) shows the productivity of water and their surrounding environment. These parameters can be effectively estimated through several remote sensing techniques. From the recent reports on the Gulf of Thailand, it is found that Chl-a and SSC are increasing in coastal areas due to changing environment caused by variations in the global carbon cycle, climate change and water pollution linking to anthropogenic conditions such as high population density and rapid urbanization in neighbouring coastal areas deteriorating the coastal and marine environment. Various models are evaluated in this study for estimation of marine Chl-a and SSC by employing Ocean Colour Monitor-2 sensor of Oceansat-2 satellite for Northern Gulf of Thailand. The retrieval of Chl-a and SSC by the atmospheric correction of visible bands from 400 to 700 nm to attain normalized water-leaving radiances and then a suitable algorithm is applied. The In-situ reflectance values of sea waters are measured using the ASD spectroradiometer. The reflectance values of the spectroradiometer are correlated for the same day atmospherically corrected satellite reflectance and the analysis offers high correlation R 2 0.73. Satellite derived, Chl-a and SSC are correlated with observed in situ Chl-a and SSC. This analysis offered better correlation of R 2 0.86 and 0.85 respectively with the algorithms of Chl-a and SSC.