Abstract
Water bodies are often induced with high concentrations of pollutants due to increased aquaculture and other development activities in marine zones. Remote sensing is an effective technique for monitoring marine environment. This study focuses on determining the appropriate spectral band for monitoring nutrients received from shrimp farms and other aquaculture activities and also from decomposed materials from mangrove forests. The study area considered was Ranong marine zone of western seaboard of Thailand.
Appropriate spectral bands for monitoring major aquatic nutrients like Ammonia Nitrogen, Phosphate Phosphorous, Total Suspended Solids (TSS) and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) were investigated using band suitability analysis. Spectral characterization of these parameters was done using image acquired by Landsat-5 TM and IRS 1C sensors for two different years: 1993 and 2000. The digital numbers of both images were analyzed for different pollution status. All these pollutant parameters were exponentially related to digital numbers whereas TSS was linearly related. Only TDS had negative and exponential correlation with the digital number. It was found that red, and SWIR are best suitable bands for tracking nutrients and TDS load by remote sensing.
