Determinación de componentes ópticamente activos en aguas continentales a partir de imágenes Landsat-8 Determination of Optically Active Constituents in Inland Waters from Landsat-8 Images

In order to investigate the new possibilities of the Landsat-8 mission in inland water quality studies, we generated an extensive database of reflectances with the radiative transfer model HydroLight, using a wide range of concentrations of optically active constituents as inputs. With the simulated data, we calculated spectral indices for Landsat-8, from which we obtained regression models for the estimation of water transparency and chlorophyll-a concentration. For improving the predictive capabilities of the models, we devise a pre-classification of the reflectance spectra, based on its spectral shape. The models were validated using data measured in several Spanish lakes, with acceptable retrieval errors for the majority of the water quality applications, even in clear waters with low chlorophyll-a concentration. The application of those models represents and advance in the study pf inland water quality, since the spatial resolution of Landsat-8 (< 30 m) allows the study of small water bodies, with a minimum revisit time of 16 days.