HIGH‐RESOLUTION AIRBORNE REMOTE SENSING OF BLOOM‐FORMING PHYTOPLANKTON¹

Abstract

ABSTRACT Remote sensing of highly turbid finfish aquaculture impoundments using the Calibrated Airborne Multispectral Scanner (CAMS) mounted on a Lear jet flown at 900 m was conducted in central Mississippi on 16 May 1990. Concurrent in situ data consisted of phytoplankton pigment concentrations and standing crop, water color, turbidity, and surface‐water temperature. Surface and near‐surface assemblages of cyanophytes and chlorophytes varied dramatically among impoundments; total chlorophyll concentrations and standing crop values ranged from 8 to 483 mg·m −3 and 8.0 × 10 2 to 2.2 × 10 6 cells‐mL −1 , respectively. Regression models fit to CAMS data provided reliable estimates for and produced accurate digital cartographs of total chlorophyll and carotenoid concentrations, phytoplankton standing crop, and turbidity. Although a model to effectively estimate in situ c‐phycocyanin concentrations was not identified, the lack of a suitable model may have resulted from variability of pigment extraction during quantification rather than failure of remotely sensed imagery to detect c‐phycocyanin. Models derived from imagery of impoundments directly beneath the aircraft sufficiently described in situ parameters in imagery of adjacent series of impoundments not directly below the aircraft. High‐resolution airborne remote sensing provides a means for monitoring local phytoplankton dynamics in temporal and spatial scales analogous to biotic and abiotic processes affecting such dynamics and necessary for applications to ecological research and fisheries or aquacultural management.