During the summer of 2001, water bodies on the south shore of Massachusetts were surveyed to evaluate water quality and identify the presence of specific plant species. Landsat ETM+ was acquired for 5 different overpasses and one IKONOS 4-meter multispectral image was purchased through the NASA ARC Program. A field crew consisting of remote sensing specialists and field geologists collected ground truth data concurrently with the image capture in a roughly 100-km² area equivalent to the IKONOS data set footprint. Field parameters collected during a four-hour window included water and plant visible and near-IR spectra as well as in situ water quality measurements such as turbidity, Secchi disk depth, and dissolved Oxygen. Laboratory analysis of water samples yielded chlorophyll-a and phosphorous content. Vegetation mapping was typically performed in the afternoon or within two days of a flyover.

Results of the field data suggest a possible relationship between Secchi disk transparency and chlorophyll-a concentrations. This relationship might be used as a cost effective solution for future monitoring. Accounting for atmospheric and radiometric distortions, a process was developed to detect the trophic state of the lakes and ponds in a subset of the study area. The process was then applied to all the water bodies in the south coastal watershed.