Mapping salinity in an oligohaline tropical coastal lagoon with MSS and TM Landsat imagery

Abstract

The Salinity Multi-band Thematic Maps generated by the correlations between the surficial in situ data and the "simultaneous" remote Landsat data (MSS and TM) are obtained for three seasons: Summer 1981, Summer 1987 and Winter 1988-89. The water body under study is the tropical coastal lagoon Coyuca de Benitez, Guerrero, Mexico. It is an oligohaline lagoon with salinity from 0 to 5 mg/1 (or 10-3). The preliminar results of the statistical models calculated by mUltiple linear regression show high coefficients of determination (R2), from 0.75 to 0.99 with P-values from 0.1 to 0.0001. The accuracy of the Thematic Maps is evaluated with in situ data and Isoline Maps. The Salinity Thematic Maps showed the general zonation suggested by the Isoline Maps. The percentages of well predicted training fields (corresponding to the sampling points) were: 100% for Summer 1981 with MSS data, 90% for Summer 1987 with TM data and 80% for Winter 1988-89 with TM data.