Simulations and Analyses of Variations in Colorimetric Properties of Natural Waters with Specific Reference to Waters with Significant Spatial Heterogeneity of Optical Properties

Abstract

Chapter 17 opens with a brief description of the way of quantification of water colour properties via such parameters as dominant wavelength and colour purity. This is done to introduce the reader to an approach of a more detailed perception of water colour formation under conditions of independently and in appreciably wide limits varying concentrations of the major colour producing agents, CPAs, such as phytoplankton, suspended minerals and dissolved organic matter. The exercises performed by the readers will permit them to realize that one and the same water colour might result from absolutely different combinations of the CPA concentration vector. It is hoped that this exercise will help the reader avoid very frequently occurring erroneous attributions of water colour as it is perceived from space over case II waters to some definite CPA, e.g. if the water colour is green, the water must be rich in phytoplankton, and if it is brown it should be abundant in terrigenous suspended matter with a predominant mineral component, etc. This exercise will also bring the reader to a clear vision why widely employed bio optical “band-ratio” algorithms can hold exclusively in case I waters and prove untenable in case of their application to retrieve CPAs in turbid marine coastal and inland waters.