Remote sensing and water quality indicators in the Korean West coast: Spatio-temporal structures of MODIS-derived chlorophyll-a and total suspended solids

The Yellow Sea is a shallow marginal sea with a large tidal range. In this study, ten areas located along the western coast of the Korean Peninsula are investigated with respect to remotely sensed water quality indicators derived from NASA MODIS aboard of the satellite Aqua. We found that there was a strong seasonal trend with spatial heterogeneity. In specific, a strong six-month phase-lag was found between chlorophyll-a and total suspended solid owing to their inversed seasonality, which could be explained by different dynamics and environmental settings. Chlorophyll-a concentration seemed to be dominantly influenced by temperature, while total suspended solid was largely governed by local tidal forcing and bottom topography. This study demonstrated the potential and applicability of satellite products in coastal management, and highlighted find that remote-sensing would be a promising tool in resolving orthogonality of large spatio-temporal scale variabilities when combining with proper time series analyses.