ADVANCES IN OPTICAL POLARIZATION REMOTE SENSING FOR MARINE OBSERVATION: A CASE STUDY IN NANCHANG RIVER PARK

Abstract. Marine observation is a worldwide challenge, which implicates for a large number of social, economic and scientific problems. Satellite remote sensing provides incredible convenience for marine observation, and remote sensing techniques with different wavelength range have been developed for scientific use related to oceanography, among of which optical polarization remote sensing is a rapidly growing field in the recent decade. Although some attempts have been made about utilizing optical polarization technique for marine observation, the potential of optical polarization remote sensing is far from being fully released and the current skills of optical polarization image processing are too coarse to extract deep information from raw images. In our experiment at Nanchang river park, three application scenarios are selected to illustrate advances in optical polarization remote sensing for marine observation, specifically including sun-glint observation, phytoplankton monitoring and coastal topography mapping. A baseline for optical polarization image processing is established for marine observation and the advantages of optical polarization technique are assessed qualitatively and quantitatively, proving that: For marine observation, optical polarization remote sensing can reduce overexposure rate, enhance dynamic range, depict subsurface phytoplankton and map coastal topography.