Qing, S.; Hao, Y.L., and Bao, Y.H., 2019. Retrieval of inorganic suspended particle size with Landsat-8 OLI data in the Yellow River estuary. In: Jung, H.-S.; Lee, S.; Ryu, J.-H., and Cui, T. (eds.), Advances in Remote Sensing and Geoscience Information Systems of Coastal Environments. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 90, pp. 19-26. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.

Particle size distribution (PSD) is relevant to many physical and biogeochemical processes in marine ecosystems. Field investigation or satellite data with coarse resolution have limitations in description of detailed PSD in a small scale region, e.g. river estuary. In this study, Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) data was used for estimating inorganic suspended particle size in the Yellow River estuary. A simple empirical model using ratio of green to red bands was developed based on in situ measured remote sensing reflectance (R_rs) and median particle size (Dv50) for inorganic materials. Validation against in situ measurements showed that retrieved Dv50 was in good accordance with in situ measurements with the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 24.0 % and root mean square error (RMSE) of 4.310µm. Application of the model to OLI data retrieved a clear and reasonable spatial distribution of Dv50 in the Yellow River estuary. OLI retrieved Dv50 agreed well with that from MODIS data (R²=0.89, MAPE=6.4 %, RMSE=0.6 µm). Dv50 maps characterized a river mouth to offshore changing trend, demonstrating the model potential for understanding of the detailed information of a local scale region. The empirical algorithm developed here can be easily applied to other satellite data with similar bands of Landsat-8 OLI data and fine spatial resolution.