APPLICATION OF REMOTE SENSING FOR ADJUSTMENT AND CALIBRATION OF WATER QUALITY MODEL - Integrating GIS, Remote Sensing, and Mathematical Modelling for Surface Water Quality Management - page 162

8. APPLICATION OF REMOTE SENSING FOR ADJUSTMENT AND

CALIBRATION OF WATER QUALITY MODEL

Conventional measurements of water quality parameters, especially those related to eutrophication,
namely TSM and CHL-a, require in situ sampling and expensive and time-consuming laboratory
work. Due to these limitations, the sampling size often cannot be large enough to cover the entire
water body. Therefore the difficulty of synoptic and successive water quality sampling becomes a
barrier to water quality monitoring and forecasting (Shafique, 2001). The problem of sampling has its
own implications for any further application to water quality assessment such as with mathematical
modeling and the calibration of water quality models. Therefore remote sensing is introduced as a tool
to overcome and complement the lack of field data that is needed in the calibration process. This
chapter shows different methodologies to calibrate the models using different types of remote sensing
data and different levels of calibration. It also highlights the advantages and disadvantages of these
methods.