Detection and Sourcing of CDOM in Urban Coastal Waters With UV-Visible Imaging Spectroscopy

Ultraviolet (UV)-visible imaging spectroscopy is an emerging and highly anticipated technology, expected to improve the remote sensing of coastal waters and expand its range of applications. Upcoming NASA satellite missions including PACE and GLIMR will feature imaging spectrometers capable of measuring hyperspectral remote-sensing reflectance (Rrs) across the visible range and well into the near-infrared and ultraviolet domains. The availability of UV reflectance is expected to facilitate the remote sensing of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) in optically complex waters, thereby improving coastal water-quality monitoring. Although this argument is well supported by the dominance of CDOM absorption in the UV domain, few studies have directly evaluated the potential advantages conferred by UV reflectance for monitoring CDOM-related coastal water quality. Here, we took advantage of a 6-week wastewater diversion event in Santa Monica Bay, California in 2015 and the availability of Portable Remote Imaging SpectroMeter (PRISM) imagery acquired during the diversion to assess if UV-visible imaging spectroscopy could facilitate the detection of CDOM and help differentiate wastewater effluent-derived CDOM from other sources. A comparison of local empirical algorithms with varying amounts of spectral information implemented on PRISM data showed that incorporating UV Rrs as a predictor significantly improved retrieval of CDOM absorption coefficients (ag). Optimal performance was reached when combining Rrs(365), Rrs(400), and Rrs(700) as predictors of ag in a multiple linear regression. The use of the entire UV-visible spectrum (365–700 nm) in a partial-least-squares regression (PLSR) did not improve retrievals, indicating that a few carefully chosen predictors in the UV-visible domain were sufficient to empirically differentiate CDOM from phytoplankton in coastal waters minimally influenced by sediments or bottom reflectance. Finally, the development of a new fluorescence-based indicator of effluent-derived CDOM (effluent fluorescence ratio, EFR) helped demonstrate the feasibility of remotely detecting CDOM from wastewater. A PLSR-based algorithm using Rrs(365–700) provided reasonable EFR retrievals and successfully identified effluent-derived CDOM at the wastewater outfall when implemented on PRISM imagery. Although further work should investigate the influence of effluent-CDOM fluorescence on Rrs more mechanistically, these results confirmed that UV-visible imaging spectrometers can facilitate coastal CDOM-related water quality monitoring and expand its range of applications.