Testing utility of Landsat 8 for remote assessment of water quality in two subtropical African reservoirs with contrasting trophic states

Water quality problems continue on a global scale and this creates the need for regular monitoring using cheaper technologies to inform management. The objective of this study was to test for significant relationships between the field-measured and Landsat 8 OLI sensor-retrieved water quality parameters. The study was carried out in two reservoirs with contrasting trophic states in Zimbabwe. Results show that the Blue/Red ratio had strong predictive relationships with Secchi disc transparency (R² > 0.70) and turbidity (R² ≥ 0.65). The Near-infrared/Red ratio was a strong predictor of chlorophyll-a in Mazvikadei (R² > 0.84) whereas in Lake Chivero, which is more polluted, the red band was the most useful predictor (R² = 0.69). Overall, our work demonstrates the utility of using Landsat 8 band ratios for remote assessment of water quality in African reservoirs as a value-addition to the traditional field-based methods, which are expensive resulting in data scarcity.