Abstract. The development of continuous river turbidity monitoring systems is essential since this is a critical water quality metric linked to the presence of organic and inorganic suspended matter. Current monitoring practices are mainly limited by low spatial and temporal resolutions and costs. This results in the huge challenge of providing extensive and timely water quality monitoring at the global scale. In this work, we propose an image analysis procedure for river turbidity assessment using different camera systems (i.e. fixed-trap camera, camera on board an uncrewed aerial vehicle and a multispectral camera). We explored multiple types of camera installation setups during a river turbidity event artificially re-created on site. The outcomes prove that processed digital-camera data can properly represent the turbidity trends. Specifically, the experimental activities revealed that single-band values were the most reliable proxy for turbidity monitoring in the short term, more so than band ratios and indexes. The best camera positioning, orientation and lens sensitivity, as well as daily and seasonal changes in lightning and river flow conditions, may affect the accuracy of the results. The reliability of this application will be tested under different hydrological and environmental conditions during our next field experiments. The final goal of the work is the implementation of this camera system to support existing techniques and to help in finding innovative solutions to water resource monitoring.
Miglino et al. (Mon,) studied this question.