The estimation of total suspended matter from satellite imagery of tropical coastal water Berau Estuary, Indonesia

Water in coastal and estuary areas needs to be investigated as human activities is allegedly decrease their quality. This has led to optical remote sensing for mapping optical water quality using empirical and semi-analytical approaches. Therefore, this study aims to estimate the Total Suspended Matter (TSM) concentration from Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) data using a spectral unmixing approach combined with a radiative transfer model. This approach was implemented in the equatorial tropical coastal water, the Berau estuary, Indonesia, by generating a look-up table (LUT) of top-of-atmosphere radiance spectra through the coupled forward models, and the endmembers were selected from the LUT. The spectral unmixing algorithm was employed to the MERIS data for decomposing the image into haze and sediment components. The data were then transformed into images of a constant haze level corresponding to 50 km visibility, and the atmospheric correction was applied. Furthermore, the TMS concentration was retrieved using the inverse semi-analytical Kubelka-Munk model. The result gave overestimated TSM concentration values on clear waters. However, in turbid waters, a lower RMSE was obtained, and the coefficient of determination was higher than in clear waters.