Macrophyte and water quality remote sensing of Western Port Bay

This collection is the remote sensing research component of the Western Port sediment supply and resuspension project which investigated the potential for imagery from the Landsat and MODIS satellite series to monitor historical particulate concentrations and water clarity and benthic macrophyte cover. We developed concentration and water clarity maps by analysing 10 Landsat images spanning from 1973 to 2014. We also developed time-series for three locations on the west, north and southeast sides of French Island. \nSeagrass and macroalgae extent were mapped from the same 10 Landsat images. \nLineage: The Landsat data was acquired from the USGS and the Australian Geoscience Data Cube (AGDC). \nLandsat imagery was acquired from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) website, after visual assessment (cloud cover, obvious sunglint) of the online thumbnail images. Cloud free Landsat 8 images over the Western Port Bay were limited, and the least affected images were selected (Table 6). Landsat MSS data was downloaded as level 1B, radiometrically and geometrically corrected and the other Landsat data was downloaded as level 2A, surface reflectance data produced with the LEDAPS processor (Masek et al. 2006). In addition, Landsat data acquired from the Australian Geoscience Data Cube (AGDC) was used to develop a time-series of Non-Algal Particulate matter (NAP). The analysis was undertaken on the National Computing Infrastructure. The time-series were generated for a site in the east of Western Port (38.381536°S, 145.453679°E), near Corinella.