Assessment of Physicochemical Parameters by Remote Sensing of Bacalar Lagoon, Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico

Abstract

Remote sensing is an invaluable research tool for the analysis of marine and terrestrial water bodies. However, it has some technical limitations in waters with oligotrophic conditions or close to them due to the low spectral response of some water parameters to the signal from the sensors to be used. In this work, we use remote sensing to evaluate a set of water quality parameters (dissolved oxygen, total dissolved solids, oxidation–reduction potential, electrical conductivity, salinity, and turbidity) in the Bacalar Lagoon, located in the Mexican Caribbean, which has experienced in recent years a dramatic change from its natural oligotrophic condition to mesotrophic and eutrophic due to anthropogenic contamination. This was accomplished through the correlation and linear regression analysis between reflectance images processed from Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2, with in situ measurements for each physicochemical parameter considered, and the development of statistical models to predict their values in places where only the reflectance values were available. The results of this work indicate the feasibility of using remote sensing to monitor electrical conductivity, salinity, turbidity, and total dissolved solids since their predicted values agree with those reported at various sites within this lagoon.