Monitoring cyanobacterial blooms in China's large lakes based on MODIS from both Terra and Aqua satellites with a novel automatic approach

Yichen Du, Junsheng Li, Bing Zhang, Kai Yan, Huan Zhao, Chen Wang, Yunchang Mu, Fangfang Zhang, Shenglei Wang, Mengqiu Wang

Abstract: Highlights•A novel index is defined to differentiate cyanobacterial blooms from highly turbid water.•A more robust automatic approach for monitoring cyanobacterial blooms is proposed.•The proposed approach is applied to Terra & Aqua MODIS data in China’s large lakes.•Spatiotemporal variation of cyanobacterial blooms in China’s large lakes is analyzed.•Combining Terra & Aqua MODIS provides more accurate cyanobacterial blooms results.