Assessment of Beer's law of logarithmic attenuation for remote sensing of shallow tropical waters

Remote sensing of coral reef environments may provide ecosystem managers with an effective monitoring tool, however, it is currently limited by some unexplained changes to the signal received by the sensor. Existing water column correction techniques attempt to account for signal modification by using Beer's law of logarithmic decay to account for attenuation of downwelling irradiance. Our objective for this study is to use downwelling irradiance values, collected in situ, to statistically evaluate Beer's law and suggest the appropriateness of applying a constant value of attenuation to satellite or airborne imagery. Findings suggest different bottom types and depths may modify attenuation coefficients differently. As a result, Beer's law of logarithmic decay is not appropriate for water column correction techniques for shallow water environments over bright surfaces.