POTENTIAL USE OF MODIS SATELLITE DATA TO EXTRACT SPATIAL TEMPORAL PATTERNS OF RIVER TURBID FLUMES AROUND SRI LANKA

摘要

Sri Lanka consists of sixteen major rivers which enter the ocean around the island. There are four monsoon seasons which carry high river discharge over a year with considerable amount of turbid water. With comparison to major rivers of the region like the Red River, Sri Lankan rivers produce less amount of turbid water. In contrast, during the annual flooding seasons in recent years, most of the rivers produced high turbid discharge for short period of time. The presence of cloud along the coastline is also at higher percentage which limits the use of optical satellite data for this kind of studies. This paper develops a satellite-based monitoring system based on Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS) for observations of spatial and temporal variations of river turbid flumes. The data processing has been conducted using Google Earth Engine resources and analysis procedures discussed thoroughly in the paper. Furthermore, the availability of cloud free dates along the river mouths have illustrated. The results found that 16 years of MODIS dataset can be used to monitor river turbid patterns around Sri Lanka with proper cloud making techniques.