logo
    A new approach to discriminate dinoflagellate from diatom blooms from space in the East China Sea
    44
    Citation
    65
    Reference
    10
    Related Paper
    Citation Trend
    Abstract:
    Abstract Dinoflagellate and diatom blooms often occur in the East China Sea (ECS) during spring and summer. Some of the dinoflagellate blooms are toxic, resulting in widespread economic damage. In order to mitigate the negative impacts, remote‐sensing methods that can effectively and accurately discriminate between bloom types are demanded for early warning and continuous monitoring of bloom events at large scales. An in situ bio‐optical data set collected from diatom and dinoflagellate blooming waters indicates that the two types of blooms exhibited distinctive differences in the shapes and magnitudes of remote‐sensing reflectance ( R rs ). The ratio of in situ measured R rs spectral slopes at two spectral ranges (443–488 and 531–555 nm, bands available with the moderate resolution imaging spectrometer (MODIS) sensor), abbreviated as BI (representing bloom index), was found effective in differentiating dinoflagellates from diatoms. Reflectance model simulations, which were carried out using in situ and algal culture data as input, provided consistent results. A classification approach for separating dinoflagellate from diatom blooms in the ECS was then developed: When fluorescence line height (FLH) is doubled over the background level and total absorption coefficient at 443 nm ≥ 0.5 m −1 , if 0.0 BI 0.3, it suggests a dinoflagellate bloom; if 0.3 BI 1.0, it suggests a diatom bloom. Finally, the approach was applied to MODIS measurements over the ECS, and a series of diatom and dinoflagellate bloom events during April–June 2005 and 2011 were successfully identified, suggesting that the proposed approach is generally valid for the ECS.
    Keywords:
    Dinoflagellate
    Bloom
    Red tide
    Abstract Dinoflagellate and diatom blooms often occur in the East China Sea (ECS) during spring and summer. Some of the dinoflagellate blooms are toxic, resulting in widespread economic damage. In order to mitigate the negative impacts, remote‐sensing methods that can effectively and accurately discriminate between bloom types are demanded for early warning and continuous monitoring of bloom events at large scales. An in situ bio‐optical data set collected from diatom and dinoflagellate blooming waters indicates that the two types of blooms exhibited distinctive differences in the shapes and magnitudes of remote‐sensing reflectance ( R rs ). The ratio of in situ measured R rs spectral slopes at two spectral ranges (443–488 and 531–555 nm, bands available with the moderate resolution imaging spectrometer (MODIS) sensor), abbreviated as BI (representing bloom index), was found effective in differentiating dinoflagellates from diatoms. Reflectance model simulations, which were carried out using in situ and algal culture data as input, provided consistent results. A classification approach for separating dinoflagellate from diatom blooms in the ECS was then developed: When fluorescence line height (FLH) is doubled over the background level and total absorption coefficient at 443 nm ≥ 0.5 m −1 , if 0.0 BI 0.3, it suggests a dinoflagellate bloom; if 0.3 BI 1.0, it suggests a diatom bloom. Finally, the approach was applied to MODIS measurements over the ECS, and a series of diatom and dinoflagellate bloom events during April–June 2005 and 2011 were successfully identified, suggesting that the proposed approach is generally valid for the ECS.
    Dinoflagellate
    Bloom
    Red tide
    Citations (44)
    Blooms of the ichthyotoxic dinoflagellate Cochlodinium polykrikoides are responsible for massive fish mortality events in Korean coastal waters (KCW). They have been consistently present in southern KCW over the last two decades, but they were not observed in 2016, unlike in the previous years. Despite extensive studies, the cause of this absence of this dinoflagellate bloom remains largely unknown. Thus, we compared physico-chemical and biological data from along the Tongyeong coast between 2016 and the previous four years (2012–2015). The averages of water temperature and salinity in August, 2016 were significantly (p < 0.001) different from those in the previous years. The amount of Changjiang River discharge, which can affect the environmental conditions in the southern Korean coastal area via ocean currents, was larger than in the previous years, resulting in a reduction in the salinity level in August when blooms of C. polykrikoides usually occurred. Moreover, compared to previous years, in 2016, there was a weak expansion of C. polykrikoides blooms in the Goheung-Oenarodo area where C. polykrikoides blooms were annually initiated in KCW. Lastly, the strong winds from the typhoon Lionrock may also have contributed to the early termination of this dinoflagellate bloom. Together with these findings, the combination of these environmental conditions in 2016, unlike in previous years, may have inhibited the formation of C. polykrikoides blooms along the Tongyeong coast.
    Dinoflagellate
    Red tide
    Bloom
    Fish kill
    Fish mortality
    Typhoon
    Citations (7)