Introduction
This quarterly water turbidity product was developed by the ASU scientific team of the Allen
Coral Atlas. Water turbidity levels are commonly represented by Formazin Nephelometric Units
(FNU). The downloadable turbidity maps are multiplied by 10 to be stored in a 16-bit integer
format. Therefore, downloadable turbidity maps are in (FNU*10) units. For instance, a value “55”
in the turbidity maps is “5.5 FNU”. The maximum detectable turbidity value is 100 FNU. There
are several steps in data processing that are outlined below.
Data Properties
The quarterly basemaps are created at a resolution of 10 m using the Google Earth Engine
Sentinel-2 surface reflectance dataset. Sentinel-2 satellite images with minimal cloud coverage
and sun glint over three months are selected. The input dataset is aggregated into a single
mosaic output to calculate the highest turbidity value in three months.
Methods
We applied a Shallow Water Turbidity (SWaT) estimation algorithm in clean reef water regions
to account for the effects of bottom reflectance and to derive accurate turbidity measurements
(Li et al, 2022). In optically-deep waters (e.g., high turbidity river plume regions), we applied an
optically-deep turbidity algorithm (Dogliotti et al, 2015). In SWaT, water turbidity (T) was
calibrated using field-measured turbidity worldwide by using two wavelength-dependent
# '$%&
calibration coefficients (i.e., 𝐴"! = and𝐶 " = ) as:
$%& '()
*"
! +#
𝑇= (1)
),+# /(/ " )
𝜌! is water-leaving reflectance. Both𝐴"! and𝐶 " are wavelength-dependent calibration
coefficients that are calculated in different wavelengths as a globally applicable model.
In shallow coastal waters, the water-leaving reflectance (𝜌1 ) is calculated from the contribution
14562
of both water column (𝑟23 ) and bottom reflectance (𝑟785589 ):
14562
𝜌1 = 𝜋𝑅(𝑟23 + 𝑟785589 ) (2)
+$
𝑟785589 = 𝑒 ,;< (3)
%
where H is water depth, 𝐾 is water-column attenuation, and 𝜌7 is bottom reflectance. So, water-
14562
column remote sensing reflectance (𝑟23 ) was calculated in the SWaT as:
14562 +# ,&+$ 6 %&'
𝑟23 = (4)
%&
Turbidity in shallow coastal waters (𝑇𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑦) was calculated as:
*" (+# ,&+$ 6 %&' )
𝑇𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑦 = ),(+! %&' )/(/ " ) (5)
# ,&+$ 6
We introduced the bottom reflectance contribution (𝑅𝜌7 𝑒 ,;< ) to abbreviate bottom effects in the
turbidity calculation (Li et al., 2022). We applied the value of (𝐴"! = 268.52) and (𝐶 " = 0.1725)
based on the central wavelength of Sentinel-2’s red band, which is calibrated in the previous
studies as a global applicable model.
The following image shows the turbidity product’s calculation steps:
Data Download
Turbidity products are downloadable. Downloaded quarterly turbidity maps show the highest
turbidity value over a three-month period, which help to identify and detect the seasonal turbid
waters hotspots over coral reefs and associated water environments. Downloaded turbidity
products will appear different from what is represented graphically on the Atlas because of the
visual transformations discussed below in “Visualization”.
Visualization
We produced the turbidity maps visible in the Atlas by reducing the computed turbidity values to
four possible bins representing low/no turbidity (values <= 50 (5.0 FNU)), moderate turbidity (<=
63 (6.3 FNU)), high turbidity (<= 80 (8.0 FNU)), and severe turbidity (> 80 (8.0 FNU)). These
bins equate to the quartiles of the distribution of over 780 trillion turbidity pixel values computed
across tropical coral reef habitat areas globally from October 2019 through July 2022. We
smoothed the binned turbidity representation with a normalized gaussian filter (𝜎 = 10) to
produce a cleaner visual product.
Areas flagged as having no turbidity data are due to a lack of clean cloud-free Sentinel2
imagery to be used as input. Dense cloud, cloud shadows, strong sun glint, or no satellite
observation all lead to unavailable input data. This is particularly pronounced in certain areas of
the world, such as Western Micronesia and some remote atolls in the Pacific.
Turbidity Data Limitation
Our turbidity data is derived from the Sentinel-2 (S2) satellite images. The red band of the S2
image has a limitation in detecting weak signals over clean oceanic water regions. Therefore,
there are illustration effects caused by S2 satellite input data, such as apparent lines or bands,
as seen in the image below.
Algorithm Improvements
As of October 11th, 2022, all past quarterly turbidity data products have been replaced with data
formulated by this method. While the two methods are similar, the new method is improved in
the following ways:
1. Version 2.0 includes many non-reef waters including river plume regions, and our output in
these non-reef areas gives good estimations in these river plume areas
2. Version 2.0 combines two different algorithms (SWaT and Optical deep water algorithms) for
different regions
References
Li, J., Carlson, R. R., Knapp, D. E., & Asner, G. P. (2022). Shallow coastal water turbidity
monitoring using Planet Dove satellites. Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation.
Dogliotti, A. I., Ruddick, K. G., Nechad, B., Doxaran, D., & Knaeps, E. (2015). A single algorithm
to retrieve turbidity from remotely-sensed data in all coastal and estuarine waters. Remote
sensing of environment, 156, 157-168.