Long-term spatial variation of algal blooms extracted using the U-net model from 10 years of GOCI imagery in the East China Sea

Long-term satellite missions could help to provide insights into spatial and temporal variations in algal blooms. However, the traditional reflectance-based method has limitations in regards to determining the available threshold for algal bloom detection among the time-varying observation conditions. In terms of extracting useful information from long-term data series precisely and efficiently, the deep learning method has shown its superiority over traditional algorithms in batch data processing. In this study, a U-net model for algal bloom extraction along the coast of the East China Sea was developed using GOCI images. The U-net model was trained with two different datasets that were constructed with six-band channels (all visible bands from GOCI imagery) and RGB-band channels (bands of 443, 555, and 680 nm from GOCI imagery). The quantitative assessment from the U-net models suggests that the U-net model trained with the six-band channel datasets outperformed the RGB-band channel datasets, with increases of 23.6%, 18.1%, and 12.5% in terms of accuracy, precision, and F-score, respectively. The validation map derived from the U-net model trained with six-band channel datasets also showed considerable matching with the ground-truth maps. By using the U-net model, the occurrence of algal blooms was automatically extracted from GOCI images. A 10-year time series of GOCI data collected between 2011 and 2020 was derived using an output-trained U-net model to explore spatial variation along the coast of the ECS. It was found that the most affected areas of the algal blooms varied by year, but were mainly located in the Zhoushan and Zhejiang coasts. Additionally, by performing principal component analysis on the daily meteorological data during April and August 2011-2020, factors related to algal bloom occurrence were discussed.