Using MODIS to estimate water turbidity in Taiwan

Bathymetric lidar technology can collect both under- and above- water elevation in coastal area with short turn around time. The underwater efficiency is significantly affected by water turbidity. However, a water turbidity dataset with extensive temporal and spatial coverage is rarely found, both in coastal are and open ocean, which is much needed by field operation. In this paper, we proposed a procedure for estimating water turbidity from MODIS data by incorporating in-situ observations, including absorption coefficient, beam attenuation coefficient, backscattering coefficient, and secchi depth. The error rate of the resultant water turbidity, reported in secchi depth, is found to be ±30% for 67% of the in-situ observations, and ±50% for 87% of the in-situ observations.