Preliminary assessment of the performance of Hyperion in coastal waters. Cal/Val activities in Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia

Moreton Bay is the Australian EO1-Hyperion coastal site used for Cal/Val activities. Moreton Bay shows spatial gradients in optical depth, bathymetry, and substrate composition. The turbid and humic river inputs, as well as the open ocean flushing, determine the water quality of the bay. Recently lyngbya toxic algae blooms have become a serious environmental and health concern. The field campaigns, carried out to coincide with Hyperion overpasses, focussed on the retrieval of Inherent Optical Properties (IOP’s), Apparent Optical Properties (AOP’s), substrate reflectance spectra and water quality parameters. Spectra from a 12 Jan. 2001 Hyperion image show very close agreement to in situ upwelling radiance spectra. INTRODUCTION Moreton Bay (Fig. 1) serves as a multi-use resource for a large population in the greater Brisbane urban area. Research groups from the University of Queensland and CSIRO cooperate in the areas of biophysical remote sensing [1]. These groups carry out cal/val activities of airborne and satellite sensors capable of sensing the spatial and temporal variations of such dynamic environments. Moreton Bay is currently part of cal/val activities for the Hyperion and MERIS missions.