Feasibility of using remote sensing platforms as an aid to water quality monitoring in the Tennessee Valley. Capabilities and costs

摘要

Remote sensing devices, which include satellite- and airborne mounted sensors (fluorosensors, imaging spectrometers, multispectral video and scanners), were evaluated according to their availability and technical, operational, and economic features for water quality monitoring in Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) reservoirs. Optical and electronic advances, and lower capital costs, have resulted in sensors that are more real-time oriented, user-interactive, flexible, portable, accessible, spectral/spatially resolved, and affordable than what had been available. Two airborne sensors, the Airborne Multispectral Measurement System (AMMS), manufactured by Xybion Electronic Systems Corp., and the Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager (CASI), manufactured by Itres Research Limited and marketed by G.A. Borstad Associates Ltd., possess the cost and technical aspects to be seriously considered for acquisition by TVA. Either would add considerable capability to TVA's efforts of mapping turbidity, transparency, chlorophyll, suspended solids, and aquatic macrophytes in reservoirs.