Estimating suspended sediment concentrations in surface waters of the Amazon River wetlands from Landsat images

Journal Article · Mon Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 1993 · Remote Sensing of Environment; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/0034-4257(93)90071-5· OSTI ID:6201364

Mertes, L A.K.; Smith, M O; Adams, J B ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Washington, Seattle (United States)

A method has been developed, based on spectral mixture analysis, to estimate the concentration of suspended sediment in surface waters of the Amazon River wetlands from Landsat MSS and TM images. Endmembers were derived from laboratory reflectance measurements of water-sediment mixtures with a range of sediment concentrations. Using these references spectra, the authors applied a linear mixture analysis to multispectral images after accounting for instrument and atmosphere gains and offsets. Sediment concentrations were estimated for individual pixels from the mixture analysis results based on a nonlinear calibration curve relating laboratory sediment concentrations and reflectance to endmember fractions. The uncertainty in the sediment concentrations derived from this analysis for three Amazon images is predicted to be within [plus minus] 20 mg/L, and the concentrations fall within a range of concentrations of suspended sediment that were measured at several times and places in the field over the past 15 years. The emphasis of their work is to use the patterns of sediment concentrations to compute the approximate volumes of sediment that are transferred between the main channel and floodplain of the Amazon River. However, the methodology can be applied universally if the optical properties of water and sediment at the site are known, and it is, therefore, useful for the study of suspended sediment concentrations in surface waters of wetlands elsewhere.

• OSTI ID: 6201364
• Journal Information: Remote Sensing of Environment; (United States), Vol. 43:3; ISSN 0034-4257
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AMAZON RIVER
WATER QUALITY
SEDIMENTS
REMOTE SENSING
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
LANDSAT SATELLITES
MONITORING
WETLANDS
AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS
ECOSYSTEMS
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
RIVERS
SATELLITES
STREAMS
SURFACE WATERS
540320* - Environment
Aquatic- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport- (1990-)