Pre and Post Effects Assessment of Marine Ranch Construction in Chlorophyll-a Concentration Using MODIS Data and a Web-Based Tool. A Case Study in Zhelin Bay, China

Abstract

Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration in lakes can tell a lot about a lake’s water quality and ecosystem. It is a measure of the amount of algae growing in a waterbody and can be used to monitor the trophic condition of a waterbody. We studied the pre and post effects of marine ranch construction in Chl-a concentration in Zhelin Bay, Southern China using Normalized Difference Chlorophyll Index (NDCI) and a web-based tool (https://mapcoordinates.info/). We used 8 day composite MODIS image collections of 500 m resolution and randomly selected two stations to extract the chlorophyll-a concentration values through the web-based tool. We recorded the slight increase in NDCI values in all stations after the construction of marine ranch which is a good indicator of the marine organisms’ reproduction and survival.