• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.114-125
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• 2008

Colored dissolved organic matter(CDOM) is an important component of ocean color that can be used as an invaluable tool in water quality and ocean color studies. With the largest source of coastal CDOM appearing to be from freshwater discharge into the ocean, coastal predictive models will do much to refine our knowledge about major processes that control CDOM distributions in coastal waters and provide a better insight into the global carbon cycle. This study aims at developing a GIS-based watershed-scale predictive model of CDOM distributions in Neponset river watersheds that can be used to appraise our understanding of CDOM sources and distributions in coastal waters and predict the response of CDOM concentration to changes in land use patterns. Weighting factors are developed for CDOM freshwater sources after extensive groundtruthing from various landuse types in the watershed. This model makes use of a publicly available DEM(Digital elevation model) as the base data for analysis. Stream networks, discharge, and land use data are used from public repositories while sub- watershed delineation, pour-points, and land use parcels are generated using Spatial Analysis of ArcGIS 9.2 to estimate the CDOM loading from various sources to the lower tributaries of rivers. The Neponset Watershed in eastern Massachusetts is selected as the site for development of the model.