ESTIMATING SUSPENDED SEDIMENT CONCENTRATIONS IN THE TENNESSEE RIVER AND THE SURROUNDING TRIBUTARIES DURING A HIGH PRECIPITATION EVENT USING PLANETSCOPE SATELLITE IMAGERY

During high rainfall/flood events, large amounts of sediments and nutrients deposit into tributaries and the main channel. Using remote sensing derived indices and regression techniques on spectral signatures, suspended sediment concentrations (SSC) has been calculated successfully in the past. However, during high rainfall/flood events, traditional remote sensing satellites such as Landsat can miss the time window to capture these events. Furthermore, spatial resolution of these satellites can hinder the analysis of smaller tributaries. In recent times development of high spatial resolution imagery on more frequent time scales has been sought after. One solution to this is the PlanetScope Satellite operated by Planet. Having a constellation of approximately 130 satellites in orbit, PlanetScope can acquire multispectral image at 3 meter spatial resolution daily, covering large areas of land. In this study PlanetScope imagery was obtained on three dates in the month of April 2020, during a high rainfall event in the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. A power regression equation based on the Normalized Difference Suspended Sediment Index (NDSSI) was used to calculate SSC in the study sites. This is an ongoing research of which preliminary results are promising.