Reconstructing Turbidity in a Glacially Influenced Lake Using the Landsat TM and ETM+ Surface Reflectance Climate Data Record Archive, Lake Clark, Alaska

Remote Sensing

Carson A. Baughman¹  Benjamin M. Jones¹  Krista K. Bartz²  Daniel B. Young³  Christian E. Zimmerman¹  Daniel J. Hayes⁴  Santonu Goswami⁴  Guido Grosse⁴  Xiaofeng Li⁴ 

[1] Alaska Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, 4210 University Drive, Anchorage, AK 99508, USA; E-Mails:;Southwest Alaska Network, National Park Service, 240 W. 5th Ave., Anchorage, AK 99501, USA; E-Mail:;Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, National Park Service, One Park Place, Port Alsworth, AK 99653, USA; E-Mail:Alaska Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, 4210 University Drive, Anchorage, AK 99508, USA;

关键词: Climate Data Records;    essential climate variables;    Landsat TM;    Landsat ETM+;    Lake Clark;    turbidity;    sockeye salmon;    water clarity;    freshwater ecosystems;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs71013692

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Lake Clark is an important nursery lake for sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) in the headwaters of Bristol Bay, Alaska, the most productive wild salmon fishery in the world. Reductions in water clarity within Alaska lake systems as a result of increased glacial runoff have been shown to reduce salmon production via reduced abundance of zooplankton and macroinvertebrates. In this study, we reconstruct long-term, lake-wide water clarity for Lake Clark using the Landsat TM and ETM+ surface reflectance products (1985–2014) and in situ water clarity data collected between 2009 and 2013. Analysis of a Landsat scene acquired in 2009, coincident with in situ measurements in the lake, and uncertainty analysis with four scenes acquired within two weeks of field data collection showed that Band 3 surface reflectance was the best indicator of turbidity (r² = 0.55, RMSE << 0.01). We then processed 151 (98 partial- and 53 whole-lake) Landsat scenes using this relation and detected no significant long-term trend in mean turbidity for Lake Clark between 1991 and 2014. We did, however, detect interannual variation that exhibited a non-significant (r² = 0.20) but positive correlation (r = 0.20) with regional mean summer air temperature and found the month of May exhibited a significant positive trend (r² = 0.68, p = 0.02) in turbidity between 2000 and 2014. This study demonstrates the utility of hindcasting turbidity in a glacially influenced lake using the Landsat surface reflectance products. It may also help land and resource managers reconstruct turbidity records for lakes that lack in situ monitoring, and may be useful in predicting future water clarity conditions based on projected climate scenarios.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.