Modeling water quality impacts from hurricanes and extreme weather events in urban coastal systems using Sentinel-2 spectral data.

Abstract

Conventional water quality measurements are nearly impossible during and immediately after extreme storms due to dangerous conditions. In this study, remotely sensed reflectance is used to develop a regression equation that quantifies total suspended solids (TSS) in near real-time after Hurricane Harvey. The application focused specifically on sediment loading and deposition and its potential impacts on the Houston Ship Channel and Galveston Bay riverine-estuarine system. The European Space Agency's Sentinel-2 satellite captured images at critical points in the storm's progression, necessitating the development of a new algorithm for this relatively new satellite mission. Several linear regressions were analyzed with the goal of developing a simple one- or two-band equation, and the final model uses the red and near infrared bands (R2 = 0.74). Results show that record flows during Harvey delivered unprecedented suspended sediment loads to the Gulf of Mexico at concentrations above 125mg/L with a mean concentration of 43mg/L across the bay. The study findings demonstrated that it took up to 11days after the storm for sediment transport to abate.