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JOURNAL OF COASTAL SCIENCES

Journal homepage: www.jcsonline.co.nr ISSN: 2348 6740 Volume 1 Issue No. 1 - 2014 Pages 63-71

Multispectral image analysis of suspended sediment concentration along the Southern coast of Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India
S. Kaliraj*, N. Chandrasekar, N.S. Magesh
Centre for Geotechnology, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu 627 012, India

ABSTRACT
The suspended sediment concentration in the coastal water is an indicator of erosion and deposition of coastal landforms. This study is attempted to estimate the suspended sediment concentration along the Southern coast of Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India using Landsat ETM+ image acquired on 10th April, 2013. The different bands of image available in geotiff format were applied for data fusion, gab-fill analysis and atmospheric correction to remove the noise and other errors using the ENVI 4.8 software. The empirical multivariate regression algorithm is used to estimate the suspended sediment from the image at various concentration and spatial distribution. The correlation between sediment and reflectance shows that high concentration of sediments produces more reflection in green and red bands than the other, whereas near IR has noticed with significant reflectance due to the presence of organic matter in suspended sediments and this phenomenon is attributed to estimate sediment from the surface water. Quantitative estimation of suspended sediments in the surface water is used to understand their contribution to the coastal landform formation and magnitudes of littoral drift. The result reveals that high sediment concentration is accumulated in the shallow depth region (less than 5m) of the offshore and it is estimated as 276.3 mg/L. However, it is decreased into is 152.1mg/L at the water surface with the depth of 5-10 m and the distance from shoreline approximately between 1 and 2.5km. This variation indicates the suspended sediment concentration is gradually decreased with the increase of distance and depth of offshore. Changes in suspended sediment concentration in different parts may be due to shoaling action induced by wind and waves, littoral currents and depth to seabed. It is observed that the shallow depth area near to shore is estimated with high sediment concentration than other places and offshore with steep slope prevail high energy wave action frequently diverting movement of sediment towards low energy zone leads accretion processes. This study proofs an efficacy of multispectral image to estimate sediment and provide information for sediment transportation and dynamic studies in order to manage and conserve the coastal environment.
*Corresponding author, E-mail address: thayakaliraj@gmail.com Phone: +91 9791402607 2014 Journal of Coastal Sciences. All rights reserved

ARTICLE INFO
Received 05 January 2014 Accepted 14 March 2014 Available online 19 March 2014 Keywords Suspended sediment concentration Multispectral image MVR algorithm Remote sensing GIS Southern coast Tamil Nadu, India

1. Introduction
The suspended sediments are derived from river discharge, shore erosion and weathering of rocky shore that can control the formation of coastal head landforms and provide source materials to the physical, chemical and biological inputs in the offshore (Whitelock et al. 1981; Baban 1995). The coastal region is generally accumulated with larger suspended sediment concentration which dominated by silt and clay particles (Warrick et al. 2004; Wang et al. 2009). The transportation and deposition of suspended sediments triggering the changes of coastal morphology and an accumulation of excess nutrients can change the aquatic ecosystem (James 2002). Moreover, the sediments transportation process influences various coastal geomorphological changes such as constructing or destructing the landforms of the coastal environment at different scale (Mertes et al. 1993; Kaliraj et al. 2013a). Major physical processes of marine system include littoral current, tidal, wave height and wind direction have influence transportation and dispersion of suspended material along the nearshore (Sarkar 2011). The sediment movement along the offshore is driven by tides,
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waves, river discharges, wind, and currents; temporal capacity of remotely sensed image provides the feasibility to monitoring the changes in suspended sediment concentration (Chen et al. 1992; Tassan 1997). Forget and Ouillon (1998) and Doxaran et al. (2002) have pointed that the sediments transportation process along the offshore is directed by wave breaking and coastal configuration and it tends radiation stress decay based on the depth and distance to the shoreline. The advanced space technology namely remote sensing provides synoptic coverage of the earth surface image by continuous observation for mapping and monitoring the coastal changes and help us to understand how the changes happened in various parts of the environment including coastal waters (Xia 1993). Landsat satellite multispectral images of MSS, TM and ETM+ have an ability to detect and map the amount of suspended sediment entering, residing, and moving in the nearshore region (Oestlund et al. 2001). The advantage of satellite images with high spectral properties provide better information on movement and concentration of

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suspended sediments compared to point data collected by on-site instruments during in-situ survey (Stumpf et al. 1992; Tassan 1994). The coastal water surface of an optical image has high spectral reflectance in blue bands and it increases in green and red bands with high suspended sediment concentrations and low reflectance with increased salinity and depth (Sridhar et al. 2008). The calibration of satellite sensor with its spatial, spectral and radiometric resolutions are used to distinguish suspended sediment concentration from the coastal water based on digital number (DN value) and it can be mapped through suitable image processing techniques (Kaliraj and Chandrasekar 2012). The preprocessing of the image is performed by geometric and radiometric correction methods makes corrections for atmospheric errors, noise, spectral irradiance, solar elevation, atmospheric scattering and absorption to produce perfect reflectance of suspended sediments in the water surface (Chauhan et al. 1996). The variations in spectral reflectance depend on the illumination geometry, atmospheric conditions and water surface roughness and these variations determine the relationship between water contents and sediment concentration in the image (Schiebe et al. 1992). The multispectral image with a wide variety of spectral, spatial, and temporal resolutions have been used to evaluate the suspended sediments, chemical pollutants, and chlorophyll contents of the shallow water surface (Ritchie et al. 1990; Godin et al. 1993; Gould and Arnone 1997; Chen et al. 2007). Computer based image processing or signal processing methods are merely involved to enhance the image, but the algorithm integrated with the geographic information systems can be used to extract the suspended sediments from the image (Baban 1997). The concentration of suspended sediments can be affecting the optical transparency of the coastal surface water; this produces high reflectance than the clear water in the image (Baban 1993; Froidefond et al. 1999; Ritchie et al. 2003). The spatial distribution and concentration of suspended sediments in the water bodies have been successfully mapped using Landsat TM images (Tassan 1987; Dekker et al. 2001). The spectral signature in visible and NIR bands of Landsat image has been used to estimate water quality characteristics such as turbidity, suspended solids, chlorophyll and salinity (Lillesand et al. 1983; Curran and Novo 1988; Keiner and Yan 1998). The spectral response curve of all seven bands in Landsat image was used to estimate variability of suspended sediment concentrations in the coastal water and the output has been placed very close to the laboratory observation (Baban 1993; Tassan 1998; Ruhl et al. 2001; Ma and Dai 2005; Nechad et al. 2010). The reflectance variation of individual features in the image is an indicative factor to delineate suspended sediments eventually to quantify their concentrations (Jensen 2007; Pavelsky and Smith 2009). Moreover, the two bands of Landsat image are characterized by reflection (Red) and absorption (NIR) of maximum radiation from the water surface, this phenomenon are attributed to distinguish suspended sediments and water content using the empirical algorithm (Guzmn and Santaella 2009). Many researchers have used remotely sensed images for mapping the water quality parameters including suspended sediment concentrations, chlorophyll-a, and salinity in worldwide (Verdin 1985; Tassan and Strum 1986; Stumpf and Pennock 1989; Stumpf and Goldschmidt 1992; Tassan 1993; Baban 1995; Woodruff et al. 2001; Oestlund et al. 2001; Yanjiao et al. 2007; Wang et al. 2009). Therefore, historical studies on suspended sediments estimation using images provide an efficacy of remote sensing in coastal applications. In this study, the Landsat ETM+ image analysis is performed to estimate the suspended sediment concentration using the empirical
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multivariate regression algorithm. The spectral reflectance values corresponding to sediments and water content have distinguished by the algorithm for estimating sediment concentration and their spatial distribution. This study can be provides vital information for monitoring and management of the coastal environment.

2. Study area
The study area covers the offshore region along the southern coast of Kanyakumari district, Tamil Nadu, India. The geographical location of this area extends from 77 14' 35. 235" E to 77 41' 17. 772" E longitude and the latitude extend from 8 0' 8. 976" N to 8 10' 21.666" N. The coast constitutes shallow depth in the near shore within the ranges from 1 to 10m and it increases in depth (30 m) with increases of distance (6 km) to the shoreline. This coast is characterized by narrow, elongated stretches comprises of pocket sandy beaches, beach plains, beach bar, shoreline terraces, sand dunes, rocky shore and estuaries. The coastal slope tends to seaward and this can be identified in thick laterite rocky uplands, estuaries, dune vegetation, and shallow water bodies. In the eastern part, the lateritic uplands are found between Kanyakumari and Kovalam coast Offshore of the Kanyakumari, Kovalam and Muttam coasts are placed with rocky outcrops. However, western parts comprise sand dune beaches which are spread roughly parallel to the shoreline. The major drainage networks of this area are namely R. Thamirabarani, R. Valliyar, R. Pazhayar and R. Hanuman Nathi and their tributaries flow towards southeast, south and south westerly direction respectively from the Western Ghats. These drainage systems can be discharge large quantity of runoff materials during northeast and southwest monsoons. Seasonal changes in wave direction, littoral currents and wind speed influence sediments transportation and distribution along the study area. It is observed that the wave energy prevailing over the study area ranges from 0.5 to 8.5 kJ/km2. In which, the tip of Cape Comorin is noticed with very high wave energy (6.5 8.5 kJ/km2) than the other parts due to hydrodynamic forces acting on steep slope of offshore from various direction leads decreasing the movement of littoral sediments. The eastern and western parts of the coast experience low wave energy condition (0.52.5 kJ/km2) and current velocity and leads deposition of littoral sediments eventual formation of young beach landforms. Littoral current system influences more in accretions and deposition processes and it is seasonally varying in directions and velocity at the different places. The average current velocity is measured as 0.14ms-1, in which the fastest flow of velocity is noticed in the Kanyakumari and Kovalam coasts with the ranges from 0.32 to 0.28 ms-1. Moreover, the littoral current moves towards the southeast to north-west during the NE monsoon and this phenomenon reverses during the SW monsoon and summer depending on wave direction and wind speed. These hydrodynamic conditions have direct influences on shoaling action and propagate the suspended sediments matter from one place to another. Climatologically, the study area comprises sub-tropical climatic conditions with the annual rainfall ranges from 826 to 1456 mm and the optimum temperature ranges of 23.78 and 33.95 C. Recently, it has been observed that the coastal structures like groins, revetments and seawalls have produced impacts on sediments transportation and movement by intervening the natural hydrodynamic processes causes erosion and accretion in the coastal area.

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Fig. 1 Study area location

3. Materials and Method

In this study, suspended sediment concentration and its spatial distribution was estimated along the southern coast of Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, India using Landsat ETM+ image acquired on 10th April, 2013. The image with 30m spatial resolution is composed of seven bands, namely blue, green, red, near IR, mid IR, SWIR and thermal IR comprises the spectral wavelength ranges from 0.450 to 2.35m. Among them, the spatial resolution (60m) of the the thermal IR band was resized into 30m using data fusion techniques in order to bring common pixel size into all bands (Table 1). According to the remote sensing principles, the observation of the physical phenomena can be targeted by their spectral properties and changes in electromagnetic radiation (Zhang Zhang et al. 2003 2003). The spectral property of the sea surface water is varying due to reflection of heterogeneous composition include suspended sediment and chlorophyll contents (Quibell 1991). The spectral reflecta reflectance (DN values) of the image was analyzed using the multivariate regression algorithm to extract the suspended sediment concentration from the surface water. The backscattering radiation from each pixel has been calibrated using the empirical algorithm to estimate the suspended sediment concentration. Moreover, the total area of suspended sediment concentration in the different range of bathymetry was calculated by multiplying the number of pixels in each group at a particular location with pixel size.

-composes composes line dropout error since May, 2003 onwards due to the failure of Scan Line Corrector (SLC) C) instrument in the sensor. This produces approximately 22% of the missing data in a single scene. So that, the pixels in a line dropout zone in the image were replaced by valid pixels of gap mask file using single file gap triangulation method in the ENVI I 4.8 environment to produce complete scene. This analysis is performed using the moving window (3x3) that executes the pixels statistically to fill the gap with valid pixels. Consequently, the he moving window calculates the mean values of neighbouring pixels fall within a window (3x3) and replace the value into the position of the central pixel of the matrix (Pan and Chang 1992). At the final stage of computations performed on the original image, it produces an output image according to the distribution of pixels in a commonly scanned image by the satellite sensor. 3.1.2. Atmospheric corrections and image enhancement

The optical multi-spectral spectral image is frequently affected by the atmosphere and radiation from the direct reflectance due to the water surface. Moreover, the digital numbers (DN values) in the raw image are not only dependent on the reflectance characteristics characteristi of the earth objects, but also contain noise and errors due to viewing geometry of the satellite, the angle of the sun radiation and atmospheric effects like haze and water particles. The major challenge of performing the atmospheric correction of ETM+ images on coastal water is to obtain the perfect radiances to surface reflectance for images in the visible portion of the electromagnetic 3.1. Pre-processing rocessing methodology for Landsat ETM+ image spectrum. In order to produce images with actual reflectance values, all bands of ETM+ image have been analyzed individually indi to remove 3.1.1. Gap fill analysis the atmospheric error using (Fast Line-of-sight Line Atmospheric The Landsat 7 ETM+ image acquired on 10th April, 2013 is collected Analysis of Spectral Hypercubes) FLASSH model in ENVI 4.8 correction tool for from the Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF), USA in geotiff format software. FLAASH is an atmospheric correction-modeling in the with UTM-WGS WGS 84 projection and coordinate system. The raw image retrieving spectral reflectance for ETM+ image that incorporates
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Fig. 2 Spectral reflectance of SSC in different wavelengths of bands in ETM+ image

-most most accurate correction for visible wavelengths (MODTRAN) radiative transfer code and produces atmospherically corrected reflectance values of coastal water surface (Chavez 1996). Moreover, FLAASH model uses the atmospheric settings include ude date, time, sun angle and temperature to represent local atmospheric condition during image acquisition. Therefore, the image free from atmospheric error can be used to estimate the concentration of suspended sediments from the coastal water surface. F Further, the spectral and spatial properties of image pixel values (DN value) were enhanced using histogram equalization technique. It is a nonlinear stretch that redistributes pixel values within the range. The result of the image is increased the contrast gray tone at both head and tail of the histogram to improve the shape of the objects (Kaliraj and Chandrasekar 2012). In this analysis, the narrow spectral ranges of DN values (18-156) of individual bands in unprocessed processed image were expanded in 1-255. The result of this image has a wide range of DN values produce distinct groups of water contents and sediment matters (Gower 2006). 3.4. Multivariate regression algorithm The variation in spectral reflectance of coastal water was used to distinguish water contents and suspended sediment matter in the image (Gordon and Clark 1981). ). Similarly, the colour index is an indicator to a quantitative measure of ocean water colour, can be defined as the nadir radiance in the water at different wavelength of bands (Gordon et al. 1988). ). Therefore, on the basis of this definition, the suspended sediment load in the coastal water can be estimated from Landsat ETM+ image with relatively high accuracy using the multivariate regression algorithm. The suspended sediment retrieval ieval algorithm deals with the ratios of spectral reflectance received by sensors in the form of an image (Tassan 1993). ). Empirical algorithm in this study comprises 66

multivariate regression analysis to estimate total suspended matter from the image. In the ETM+ image, the surface reflectance of coastal water is affected by volume scattering in the visible and infrared (near IR, mid IR and SWIR) bands. Therefore, the multivariate regression analysis uses all seven bands of this image separately to derive the exact spectral reflectance suspended sediment matter and it is expressed as, (Zhang et al. 2003)
SSC = A o +
k

A i ( B a n d ) i - - - (1)

i =1

Where, SSC refers suspended sediment concentration (mg/L); Bandi refers the pixel value (DN value) of the visible and infrared bands of the ETM+ image; k is the band (channel) number, and Ao and Ai are the empirical regression coefficient constants. Suspended sediment concentration was estimated by using various independent variables in the regression algorithms. The empirical algorithm substitutes with all seven bands of ETM+ image and regression coefficient constants is expressed as,
SSC = [8.6880 0.0221(1)] [0.0202(TM2)] [0.0202( + [0.2831(TM3)] [0.2822(TM4)] + [0.3639(TM5)] [0.0405(TM6) 0.0405(TM6)] [0.2579(TM7)] ---(2)

The algorithm executes all bands by using a model builder module in ERDAS Imagine 9.2 software. In this, the algorithm can be correlating the spectral reflectance variability of surface water to quantify the suspended sediments with the coefficient of determination (R2) as 0.572 and by the root mean square error (RMSE) is 0.98 for mg/L in a unit of area.

4. Results and discussion

The reflectance variation of the surface water is clearly visible in satellite image and this undoubtedly indicates the presence of
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This is due to low amount of radiation backscattering by suspending materials present in the surface water. At the highest concentration of SSC (276.3 mg/L) and above, it is observed that the range of reflectance increases from 0.12 to 0.13% in the wavelength of green (0.525-0.625 m) and red (0.630 - 0.690 m) bands. Comparative analysis of reflection and wavelength at different sediment concentration produce a non-linear spectral profile that indicates the distribution of suspended sediments in the surface water. Whereas, 4.1. Multi-spectral image reflectance response to SSC the reflection level is decreased into 0.08 0.05 % in the green band and 0.084 0.062 % in red band with the SSC ranges of 152.1 and The suspended sediment matter in the coastal water consists of both 69.4mg/L respectively. organic and inorganic materials derived from river discharge, littoral drift and beach erosion process. The reflectance of image pixels 4.2. Estimation of suspended sediment concentration depends upon SSC variations and that can be altering the optical properties of the water column (Curran and Novo 1988; Mertes et al. The reflectance variation of the surface water is clearly visible in 1993; Kunte 2008; Katlane et al. 2013). In general, the reflectance satellite image and this undoubtedly indicates the presence of tends to increase with the increase in SSC in the visible spectrum suspended sediments in large quantity along the offshore. In the (blue, green and red bands) and decrease in the wavelength of near Landsat ETM+ image, the total suspended sediment matter in the IR and thermal IR bands (Yanjiao et al. 2007; Chen et al. 2010). In coastal water can be characterized by absorption (near IR) and this study, the total suspended sediments ranges were divided into reflection (Red) of maximum radiation (Warrick et al. 2004). On the five classes based on the depth and distance to shoreline to estimate basis of this concept, the empirical algorithm executes the DN values the spectral properties in different wavelengths include both visible of all bands of the ETM+ image to produce the total suspended and infrared portion. Figure 2 shows the relationship between sediment concentration in pixel scale wise. The mixture of suspended spectral reflectance and sediment concentration in different particles increases turbidity of coastal water that produces more wavelength of the image. The suspended sediments with various reflectance and therefore this often determines DN values in the concentrations have produced relatively nearest reflection ranges image with respect to availability of sediments (Ritchie et al. 2003). from 0.02 to 0.036 % within the wavelength range of 0.450 - 0.515 Hence, the algorithm is applied to construct an empirical relationship m (blue band). So that, the separation of spectral curves within this between the reflectance values of water and sediments to produce wavelength is more difficult to distinguish sediment particles from the suspended sediment concentration with relatively accurate scale (Chen et al. 1991). water content (Ramakrishnan et al. 2013). suspended sediments in large quantity along the offshore. In the Landsat ETM+ image, the total suspended sediment matter in the coastal water can be characterized by absorption (NIR) and reflection (Red) of maximum radiation (Bhargava and Mariam 1991). On the basis of this concept, the empirical algorithm executes the DN values of all bands of the ETM+ image to produce the total suspended sediment concentration in pixel scale wise.

Fig. 3 Suspended sediment concentration (SSC) in different parts of the study area

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Band No. 1 2 3 4

Band Name Blue Green Red Near IR

Spectral Resolution 0.450 - 0.515 m 0.525 - 0.605 m 0.630 - 0.690 m 0.750 - 0.900 m

Spatial Resolution 30 x 30 m 30 x 30 m 30 x 30 m 30 x 30 m

Spectral Characteristics Reflectance is just below peak transmittance of water to upper limit of suspended matter or chlorophyll absorption High reflectance to green matter and corresponds to absorption of red and blue chlorophyll, healthy vegetation High reflectance of reddish matter and corresponding to red chlorophyll absorption region Reflective Infra Red region - corresponding absorption to reddish matter and responsive to the amount of chlorophyll (biomass) present in image Sensitivity to turbidity (chlorophyll and sediments mixture) and the clear water contents of surface water Corresponds to emission of heat matter from the particles or objects in Thermal Infra Red region Sensitivity to absorption of suspended materials and water contents Reflection of matter in long spectral properties with high spatial resolution

5 6 7 8

Mid IR Thermal IR SWIR Panchromatic

1.55 - 1.75 m 10.40 - 12.5 m 2.08 - 2.35 m 0.52 - 0.90 m

30 x 30 m 60 x 60 m 30 x 30 m 15 x 15 m

Table 1. Spectral and spatial characteristics of Landsat ETM+ image

Surface water with low SSC has no significant influences on reflectance values in visible spectrum include (0.450 0.450 - 0.690 m) in blue, green and red bands. However, it is noticed with high reflection (0.06 0.08 %) in the wavelength of near IR (0.750 0.750 - 0.900 m) band. This is because se of the availability of organic matter in the suspended sediments reflecting more radiation in the near IR. The effect of organic matter i.e. phytoplankton on reflectance is to decrease the reflectance in the short wavelengths, from 400 to 515 nm, and to increase the reflectance in the longer wavelengths like near IR and mid IR and SWIR (Quibell 1991; Ruhl et al. 2001).

This analysis reveals that the response of reflectance in the image tends to increase with the increase of SSC in wavelength of all bands with a few minor exceptions in the near-IR near spectrum. This is due to the sediment concentration is often reflected more mor radiation in the visible portion than the infrared portion include near IR, mid IR, SWIR and thermal IR bands. The variation in reflectance from individual band of ETM+ image is attributed to estimation of suspended sediments, and can be useful information informati for hydrodynamic and sediment transport studies. In this study, the ETM+ image is used to estimate suspended sediment concentration (SSC) using a multivariate regression algorithm.

Fig. 4 Major factors influence SSC and its distribution along the study area

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Sl. No. 1 2 3 4 5

Bathymetry (m) <5 10 20 30 > 30

Distance from shoreline (km) 0-1 1 - 2.5 2.5 - 6.4 6.4 - 10 10 - 20

Area of distribution (km2) 6.28 2.85 1.98 1.53 1.32

Suspended sediment concentration (mg/L) 276.3 152.1 69.4 24.7 11.2

Table 2. Quantitative estimation of SSC and bathymetry characteristics of the study area

The result reveals that the SSC along the study area is estimated with ranges from 11.2 to 276.3mg/L (Table 2). Among them, coastal water surface extends (6.28 km2) with the distance of 1km from the shoreline and less than 5m depth to seabed has been estimated with high concentration of suspended sediments as 276.3mg/L. In the north-eastern part of Kanyakumari coast, the suspended sediments were estimated in large quantity due to discharge of Uppar River and Hanuman Nadi River flow from the Western Ghats. Moreover, the geographical nature of coastal configuration of this area experiences the shoaling effect process in the surf zone as the frequent wind generated wave action and rip currents. This phenomenon is attributed to movement of near-bottom SSC towards the southern coast through littoral currents. The middle part of southern coast was noticed deposition landforms due to the swash of the significant amount of suspended materials by less energy waves and low velocity of littoral currents (Kaliraj et al. 2013a). Whereas, the SSC is decreased rapidly with the increases of distance to the shoreline and depth to seabed and it is estimated as 152.1mg/L between the distance from 1 to 2.5km to the shoreline at the bathymetry level of 5 10m. As the increase of depth, the low amount of sediments available to move towards the shore and so that it's seen as low concentrations in the surface water. Also, the wave produces low frequency of shoaling action in the deeper water cause to sparely distribution sediment concentration (Kaliraj et al. 2013b). The SSC is remained low along the surface water with 10m depth and above from the distance approximately 2.5 to 6 km of shoreline (Figure 3). The variation of SSC reveals that the SSC is indirectly proportional to the depth to seabed (bathymetry) and distance to the shoreline and have positive correlation with wave direction and littoral current prevail over the offshore (Figure 4). 5. Conclusions Multi-spectral image of the coastal water surface comprises spectral properties of suspended matter along with water contents. The variation in reflectance indicates presence of suspended sediments in the coastal water and empirical algorithmic analysis of image provides a quantitative estimation in pixel scale wise. SSC is extracted from the Landsat ETM+ image based on its spectral properties attributed to suspended sediments. Analysis of the total range of wavelength (0.450 - 0.900 m) in both visible and near IR bands reveals that the blue bands have no significant reflectance to various sediment concentration levels. Whereas, high SSC produces maximum reflectance in green and red bands, however, it is limited to the volume of sediment concentrations. At the low SSC level, the reflectance value is poor in blue, green and red bands. In contrast with that, near IR band has noticed a high reflection against low SSC

-level due to availability of organic matters in the suspended sediments cause more radiation in the near IR. This phenomenon is attributed to understanding the relationship between spectral reflectance and SSC at different wavelengths and it produces a nonlinear spectral profile that indicates concentration of suspended sediments in the surface water. Moreover, high SSC is estimated along the shallow depth in the nature area, especially in the eastern part due to the large quantity of river discharge materials shoaling by waves and currents. Whereas, the water surface away from the shore has found with low SSC, it tends to increase depth and distance, the low amount of sediments only available to spread along the vast water surface area. Hence, the variation of SSC is decreasing with the increase of depth and distance to the shoreline and it concluded that the SSC is indirectly proportional to depth and distance to the shoreline and also have a direct relationship to wave direction and littoral current prevailing over the study area. This study demonstrates the efficacy of multispectral optical image to estimate the suspended sediments based on its reflectance characteristics and provide information for understanding sediment transportation and coastal dynamic process for researchers and management authorities. Acknowledgements The corresponding author is thankful to DST-INSPIRE Division, Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India, for the award of INSPIRE Fellowship (DST/INSPIRE/2011/IF110366) as a financial support for pursuing his Ph.D Degree Program.

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