• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.37 no.5_1
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• pp.959-974
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• 2021

Forel-Ule Index (FUI) is an index which classifies the colors of inland and seawater exist in nature into 21 gradesranging from indigo blue to cola brown. FUI has been analyzed in connection with the eutrophication, water quality, and light characteristics of water systems in many studies, and the possibility as a new water quality index which simultaneously contains optical information of water quality parameters has been suggested. In thisstudy, Ocean Colour-Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI) based 4 km FUI was spatially downscaled to the resolution of 500 m using the Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) data and Random Forest (RF) machine learning. Then, the RF-derived FUI was examined in terms of its correlation with various water quality parameters measured in coastal areas and its spatial distribution and seasonal characteristics. The results showed that the RF-derived FUI resulted in higher accuracy (Coefficient of Determination (R²)=0.81, Root Mean Square Error (RMSE)=0.7784) than GOCI-derived FUI estimated by Pitarch's OC-CCI FUI algorithm (R²=0.72, RMSE=0.9708). RF-derived FUI showed a high correlation with five water quality parameters including Total Nitrogen, Total Phosphorus, Chlorophyll-a, Total Suspended Solids, Transparency with the correlation coefficients of 0.87, 0.88, 0.97, 0.65, and -0.98, respectively. The temporal pattern of the RF-derived FUI well reflected the physical relationship with various water quality parameters with a strong seasonality. The research findingssuggested the potential of the high resolution FUI in coastal water quality management in the Korean Peninsula.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.6_1
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• pp.1255-1272
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• 2023

Satellite-based chlorophyll-a concentration, produced as a long-term time series, is crucial for global climate change research. The production of data without gaps through the merging of time-synthesized or multi-satellite data is essential. However, studies related to satellite-based chlorophyll-a concentration in the waters around the Korean Peninsula have mainly focused on evaluating seasonal characteristics or proposing algorithms suitable for research areas using a single ocean color sensor. In this study, a merging dataset of remote sensing reflectance from the geostationary sensor GOCI-II and polar-orbiting sensors (MODIS, VIIRS, OLCI) was utilized to achieve high spatial coverage of chlorophyll-a concentration in the waters around the Korean Peninsula. The spatial coverage in the results of this study increased by approximately 30% compared to polar-orbiting sensor data, effectively compensating for gaps caused by clouds. Additionally, we aimed to quantitatively assess accuracy through comparison with global chlorophyll-a composite data provided by Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI) and GlobColour, along with in-situ observation data. However, due to the limited number of in-situ observation data, we could not provide statistically significant results. Nevertheless, we observed a tendency for underestimation compared to global data. Furthermore, for the evaluation of practical applications in response to marine disasters such as red tides, we qualitatively compared our results with a case of a red tide in the East Sea in 2013. The results showed similarities to OC-CCI rather than standalone geostationary sensor results. Through this study, we plan to use the generated data for future research in artificial intelligence models for prediction and anomaly utilization. It is anticipated that the results will be beneficial for monitoring chlorophyll-a events in the coastal waters around Korea.