Authors:

Ethan Scott Streckfuss

Date Created:

Not specified

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Professor:

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About Paper:

The Great Lakes provide drinking water and recreational use for millions of people, thus it is important to maintain high water quality. River plumes introduce new pollutants to the water, which can have implications for human health and the aquatic ecosystem. Despite the amount of research conducted on oceanic river plumes, plumes released into freshwater lakes are still not well-understood, and vary in important ways from their oceanic counterparts. This study aims to leverage high- resolution satellite imagery and environmental data in order to characterize Lake Michigan river plumes and increase knowledge of plume boundaries, movement, and water quality. An algorithm was created to automate the detection and measurement of the St Joseph River plume from 3 meter spatial and 1 day temporal resolution satellite imagery. This algorithm utilizes Normalized Difference Water Index and Normalized Difference Turbidity Index spectral indices to separate land from water, then clear water from turbid water, creating clean boundaries of river plume presence. In addition to plume detection, data including river discharge, temperature, and wind were analyzed. These parameters, in conjunction with the satellite imagery, are incorporated into an empirical model to predict plume presence, size, and direction without satellite imagery input. The model demonstrates skill in capturing plume characteristics on environmental forcings. Combined results show that larger plume sizes typically occur with higher peak discharge events, as well as stronger wind speeds. It is concluded that satellite imagery can properly be used with environmental data to characterize and measure plume size and movements. Keywords: [no keywords provided]

Source:

Purdue University / 2025

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

Ethan Scott Streckfuss