Detection of TSM parameter in coastal waters of Blacksea with remotely sensed images

Black Sea is an important basin in terms of the Turkish Economy which has been exposed to the effect of the anthropogenic origin pollutants for long years. Many large and small rivers and streams along the Black Sea coast affect the quality of the coastal waters with the carried loads by them. One of these loads effecting on the water quality is the total suspended matter (TSM). TSM with many aspects affects water?s physical, chemical and biological structure. Monitoring of the TSM parameter is extremely important in terms of putting forward of the quality of the coastal waters. This study intended that calculate the TSM concentration with the remote sensing techniques, propound its distribution and investigate algorithms that will allow this.TSM is one of the most important matters in determining the optical characteristics of water. Hence, determination of concentration and distribution in water is of great importance. This process can be applied by traditionally taken in-situ data in water or today; by also using remote sensing techniques via the sensors which have high spatial, spectral, radiometric and temporal resolutions used in remote sensing technologies. In the literature many TSM estimation algorithm developed by using different methods for different waters and different sensors is available. However, an algorithm developed in this sense for the Black Sea coasts of Turkey is not available.In this sense in study, regression analysis was implemented between the processed Landsat TM images containing the coast zone and synchronous in-situ data in the same area. As a result of this process, an empirical TSM estimation algorithm which has 0.67 R2 value was developed for the coastal waters of the Black Sea region. TSM concentration and distribution images obtained by using the developed algorithm were generated and explained. It can be concluded that this is a unique algorithm developed for determining TSM concentration and distribution via the remote sensing techniques in the study region.