Influence of Three-Dimensional Coral Structures on Hyperspectral Benthic Reflectance and Water-Leaving Reflectance

Shading and inter-reflections created by the three-dimensional coral canopy structure play an important role on benthic reflectance and its propagation above the water. Here, a plane parallel model was coupled with a three-dimensional radiative transfer canopy model, incorporating measured coral shapes and hyperspectral benthic reflectances, to investigate this question under different illumination and water column conditions. Results indicated that a Lambertian treatment of the bottom reflectance can be a reasonable assumption if a variable shading factor is included. Without flexibility in the shading treatment, nadir view bottom reflectances can vary by as much as ±20% (or ±9% in above-water remote sensing reflectance) under solar zenith angles (SZAs) up to 50°. Spectrally-independent shading factors are developed for benthic coral reflectance measurements based on the rugosity of the coral. In remote sensing applications, where the rugosity is unknown, a shading factor could be incorporated as an endmember for retrieval in the inversion scheme. In dense coral canopies in clear shallow waters, the benthos cannot always be treated as Lambertian, and for large solar-view angles the bi-directional reflectance distribution functions (BRDF) hotspot propagated to above water reflectances can create up to a 50% or more difference in water-leaving reflectances, and discrepancies of 20% even for nadir-view geometries.