Quantitative analysis of aircraft multispectral-scanner data and mapping of water-quality parameters in the James River in Virginia

Statistical analysis techniques were applied to develop quantitative relationships between in situ river measurements and the remotely sensed data that were obtained over the James River in Virginia on 28 May 1974. The remotely sensed data were collected with a multispectral scanner and with photographs taken from an aircraft platform. Concentration differences among water quality parameters such as suspended sediment, chlorophyll a, and nutrients indicated significant spectral variations. Calibrated equations from the multiple regression analysis were used to develop maps that indicated the quantitative distributions of water quality parameters and the dispersion characteristics of a pollutant plume entering the turbid river system. Results from further analyses that use only three preselected multispectral scanner bands of data indicated that regression coefficients and standard errors of estimate were not appreciably degraded compared with results from the 10-band analysis