UAV-Based Hyperspectral Imaging for River Algae Pigment Estimation

Harmful and nuisance algal blooms are becoming a greater concern to public health, riverine ecosystems, recreational uses of inland waterways. Algal bloom proliferation has increased in the Upper Clark Fork River due combination warming water temperatures, naturally high phosphorus levels, an influx nitrogen from various sources. To improve understanding dynamics how they affect quality, often measured as biomass through pigment standing crops, UAV-based hyperspectral imaging system was deployed monitor several locations along western Montana. Image data were collected across spectral range 400–1000 nm with 2.1 resolution during two field sampling campaigns 2021. Included methods estimate chl phycocyanin crops using regression analysis salient wavelength bands, before after separating pigments according their growth form. Estimates generated linear compared situ data, resulting maximum R2 0.96 for estimating fila/epip chl-a 0.94 when epiphytic phycocyanin. total abundance, epiphytic, sum filamentous sources also included, promising method remotely crops. This addresses shortcomings current monitoring techniques, which limited spatial temporal scale, by proposing rapid collection high-spatial-resolution abundance estimates.