Scattering Coefficient

Scattering coefficient is one of the most important parameters among the inherent optical properties (IOP) which are the optical properties of water which doesn’t depend on geometrical considerations but depends only on the constituents of water like particulate and dissolved components. Scattering coefficient is the part of the incident visible radiation scattered out of the beam in every direction and is expressed as subtract of the absorption coefficient from attenuation coefficient. The scattering coefficient depends on parameters such as the number, Refractive Index, shape and Size distribution of particulate matter in water (Kirk, 1994). The total scattering coefficient is a composed of¬ scattering coefficient of water and particulate

The partitioning of scattering spectra into contributions by phytoplankton, suspended sediments is thereby very important. Since the scattering coefficient is influenced by size, shape and Refractive Index of the material, all these information is contained in the scattering spectra. Extracting the composition of the constituents from scattering coefficients is a continuing problem in ocean color studies. Scattering property determines how light is radiated through a water column and thus it helps in processing, analyzing and retrieving useful information from the remotely observed satellite data (Snyder et al, 2008) and it can indicate the shape features and composition of suspended matter in water. The inference of remote sensing reflectance requires information about Inherent optical properties such as scattering, backscattering, absorption, and attenuation. In addition, the phytoplankton and submersed marcrophytes are depended on the availability of light in the water

The anomalous diffraction approach of Van de Hulst was the basis of this approach (Bricaud and Morel 1986; Bernard et al 2001). Various oceanographic studies on influence and variations of scattering by phytoplanktons in different environmental conditions were based on this approach (Stramski et al 1993; Stramski et al, 2001; Stramski et al 2004). Nevertheless, the assumption of homogeneous sphere is often significantly deviating from actual situation as algal cells have diverse, complex inner structure and shapes. Studies have also indicated departure from the homogeneous sphere simulated models of scattering spectra (Volten et al 1998; Wikoswki et al 1998). Zhou et al (2012) had determined variations of scattering spectra of 14 phytoplankton species in laboratory and found that the highly featured scattering and backscattering spectra of phytoplankton could not be modeled satisfactorily based on Mie theory for homogeneous spheres. The scattering & backscattering coefficient spectra of phytoplankton are highly featured and the departure from the power spectra of particulate scattering in waters with high phytoplankton concentration can be attributed to the phytoplankton component of scattering as compared against the smooth power spectra produced by the suspended sediments (Whitmire et