"August 2001." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-80). Examines the susceptibility of existing signal processing methods to errors and identifies other possible causes of depth error not accounted for by existing signal processing methods, by analysis of the detected laser return waveform data. Methods to improve depth accuracy are investigated.

An experiment was conducted to determine whether the water depth (above soil) and soil type would have any influence on the multispectral reflectances of paddy rice, and their calculated vegetation index values. The results showed that, when vegetation cover was low (below 600 grams of dry biomass per square meter), the near infrared (NIR) reflectances decreased very little with water depth. The same was true for red reflectances, but to a lesser degree. Overall the changes were not significant at 0.05 level of significance when the water depth was increased from 2.5 centimeters to 10 centimeters. When the vegetation cover became higher most NIR and red reflectances did not show a significant decrease with the increase of the water depth, and sometimes they even increased slightly up to a water depth of 6.4 cm. Nevertheless both rice cover and water depth as well as soils played an important role in the reflectance pattern in red and NIR bands. Some index values increased and some decreased depending on water depth and rice cover. Statistical analysis of the data showed that rice multispectral responses were mainly controlled by vegetation and minimally influenced by soil and water depths.

Xi, Hongyan. / "December 2010." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-176). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

Algal blooms plague freshwaters across the globe, as increased nutrient loads lead to eutrophication of inland waters and the presence of potentially harmful cyanobacteria. In this context, remote sensing is a valuable approach to monitor water quality over broad temporal and spatial scales. However, there remain several challenges to the accurate retrieval of water quality parameters, and the research in this thesis investigates these in an optically complex lake (Lake Balaton, Hungary). This study found that bulk and specific inherent optical properties [(S)IOPs] showed significant spatial variability over the trophic gradient in Lake Balaton. The relationships between (S)IOPs and biogeochemical parameters differed from those reported in ocean and coastal waters due to the high proportion of particulate inorganic matter (PIM). Furthermore, wind-driven resuspension of mineral sediments attributed a high proportion of total attenuation to particulate scattering and increased the mean refractive index (n̅p) of the particle assemblage. Phytoplankton pigment concentrations [chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and phycocyanin (PC)] were also accurately retrieved from a times series of satellite data over Lake Balaton using semi-analytical algorithms. Conincident (S)IOP data allowed for investigation of the errors within these algorithms, indicating overestimation of phytoplankton absorption [aph(665)] and underestimation of the Chl-a specific absorption coefficient [a*ph(665)]. Finally, Chl-a concentrations were accurately retrieved in a multiscale remote sensing study using the Normalized Difference Chlorophyll Index (NDCI), indicating hyperspectral data is not necessary to retrieve accurate pigment concentrations but does capture the subtle heterogeneity of phytoplankton spatial distribution. The results of this thesis provide a positive outlook for the future of inland water remote sensing, particularly in light of contemporary satellite instruments with continued or improved radiometric, spectral, spatial and temporal coverage. Furthermore, the value of coincident (S)IOP data is highlighted and contributes towards the improvement of remote sensing pigment retrieval in optically complex waters.

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