Airborne hyperspectral imaging for sensing phosphorus concentration in the Lake Okeechobee drainage basin

Eutrophication disturbs the ecological balance in the Lake Okeechobee due to high concentration of phosphorus emanated from the regions in the lake's drainage basin. Ability of measuring phosphorus (P) concentrations of water in the Lake Okeechobee itself is very important. Furthermore, monitoring P in its drainage basins is crucial in order to find the cause of P loading and contributing regions. Also, inexpensive real-time sensing capability for a large area in a short time would help scientist, government agents, and civilians to understand the causes, spot the high-risk areas, and develop management practices for restoring the natural equilibrium. In order to measure P concentrations in the Lake Okeechobee drainage basin, airborne hyperspectral images were taken from five representative target sites by deploying a modified queen air twin engine aircraft. Each flight line covered a swath of approximately 365 m wide. Spatial resolution was about 1 m. Spectral range covered was between 412.65 and 991.82 nm with an approximate of 5 nm spectral resolution. Ground truthing was conducted to collect soil and vegetation samples, GPS coordinates of each location, and reflectance measurement of each sample. On the ground, spectral reflectance was measured using a handheld spectrometer in 400-2500 nm. The samples were sent to a laboratory for chemical analysis. Also diffuse reflectance of the samples was measured in a laboratory setting using a spectrophotometer with an integrating sphere. Images were geocorrected and rectified to reduce geometric effect. Calibration of images was conducted to obtain actual reflectance of the target area. Score, SAM (Spectral Angle Mapping), SFF (Spectral Feature Fitting) were computed for spectral matching with image derived spectral library.