Remotely-sensed investigation of the impact of Yangtze River´s discharge to the East China Sea

The influence of big rivers´ discharge on the ocean is an important theme for land-ocean interaction studies. The Yangtz River (Chang Jiang) is the longest river in China and Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It has a mean annual runoff of 905 billion m3, and averagely carries about 0.433 billion tons of sediments and 0.15 billion tons of dissolved matters to the East China Sea (ECS) each year. The terrestrial materials provide rich substrates for biological activities in the ocean. In this study, the monthly average discharge data of the Yangtze River were collected from 1997 to 2002, and the monthly average water-leaving radiance (Lw) and the chlorophyll_a concentration (Chl_a) in the ECS were processed and calculated from SeaWiFS data acquired from December 1997 to December 2002. Then the correlations of the monthly average discharge to the monthly average Lw at 555nm and Chl_a were analysed respectively. And a series correlative coefficient image maps were achieved.