Aerial Mapping of Red Tides and Phytoplankton Blooms

Borstad Associates Ltd., 1990

In September 1990 a massive red tide due to the non-toxic dinoflagellate Gonyaulax spinifera was reported along the southern half of the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The Borstad Associates Ltd. CASI was mobilized within 3 hours and imagery acquired in both ‘spatial’ (12 spectral bands across a 512 pixel wide image) and ‘spectral’ (288 spectral bands over 40 selected look directions) modes.

(Above) An enhanced false colour image of the Gonyaulax spinifera red tide in the vicinity of a commercial fish farm off western Vancouver Island. The small rings are salmon pens. The image is 1 km wide with 2 m resolution.

(Above) A quantitative image of phytoplankton chlorophyll concentration produced from bands measuring solar stimulated fluorescence in the image above.

(Above) Example of a sequence of individual spectra from a transect heading north along the west coast of Vancouver Island. The z-axis is the along-track time (or distance) axis.

To link to another related project on FLH Chlorophyll please click HERE

Click HERE to return to Papers on Aquatic and Coastal

   
Last update 13 March 2007
The contents of this site are © copyright 1993 - 2009, ASL Borstad Remote Sensing Inc..