title: Mapping the pollutants in surface riverine flood plume waters in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia.
abstract: The extent of flood plume water over a 10 year period was mapped using quasi-true colour imagery and used to calculate long-term frequency of occurrence of the plumes. The proportional contribution of riverine loads of dissolved inorganic nitrogen, total suspended sediments and Photosystem-II herbicides from each catchment was used to scale the surface exposure maps for each pollutant. A classification procedure was also applied to satellite imagery (only Wet Tropics region) during 11 flood events (2000-2010) through processing of level-2 ocean colour products to discriminate the changing characteristics across three water types: "primary plume water", characterised by high TSS values; "secondary plume water", characterised by high phytoplankton production as measured by elevated chlorophyll-a (chl-a), and "tertiary plume water", characterised by elevated coloured dissolved and detrital matter (CDOM+D). This classification is a first step to characterise flood plumes.
authors.affiliation: Catchment to Reef Research Group, TropWater, ACTFR, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD, Australia. michelle.devlin@jcu.edu.au
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Devlin
authors.forename: L W
authors.initials: LW
authors.lastname: McKinna
authors.forename: J G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Alvarez-Romero
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Petus
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Abott
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Harkness
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brodie
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D002734:Chlorophyll / Q000032:analysis; D057894:Coral Reefs; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D055868:Floods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006540:Herbicides / Q000032:analysis; D010839:Phytoplankton / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology; D058998:Remote Sensing Technology; D045483:Rivers / Q000737:chemistry*; D018531:Spacecraft; D014872:Water Movements; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis*; D014877:Water Pollution, Chemical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
chemical_list: D006540:Herbicides; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D002734:Chlorophyll