| Poster: |
Harmful algal blooms in Lake Champlain (VT-NY-QC) are an increasingly serious concern. Such blooms impact drinking water supplies, recreational use of lake waters, and, if toxic, pose a threat to human health. Remote sensing offers the potential to map and monitor the distribution of blooms and thus greatly augment current point sampling methods. This study assessed the utility of high spatial resolution QuickBird (2.4m, 4 bands at ~100nm) and high spectral resolution MERIS (300m, 15 bands at ~10nm) satellite data to detect and quantify cyanobacteria blooms in Lake Champlain. Satellite data were acquired coincident with in situ water samples and in-vivo fluorescence of chlorophyll a and phycocyanin during the summers of 2003 and 2004. Cyanobacteria and associated chlorophyll a and phycocyanin pigment concentrations were predicted from QuickBird radiance data based on regression analysis. The increased spectral information of the MERIS data, however, allowed the use of published optical models to predict pigment concentrations directly. QuickBird showed great promise for mapping the heterogeneous fine spatial distribution of algal blooms over local areas while coarse-resolution MERIS was able to detect blooms over the entire lake and accurately predict pigment concentrations in the eutrophic bays where blooms can have the most impact. |