Hyperspectral Prisma Products of Aquatic Systems

This study presents an assessment of PRISMA (PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa) for water applications, by including a general description of the mission and by focusing on the standard Level 1 (L1) and Level 2 (L2) products acquired on different aquatic systems. A preliminary analysis on the estimation of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) from L1 PRISMA products in the visible near infrared spectra (VISNIR) is indicating values comparable to Sentinel-2 MSI from literature, apart at short wavelengths where PRISMA SNR is lower. Few examples of L2 products in terms of water reflectance are also presented to encourage the exploitation of PRISMA for aquatic ecosystem mapping. The results of this study are indicating that even if some applications might be developed with the standard L2 products, an ad-hoc processing might be necessary to include the specific requirements of atmospheric correction of water targets. Further analyses with a higher number of imagery data are however recommended to fully characterize the PRISMA products.