Convolutional neural network model for discrimination of harmful algal bloom (HAB) from non-HABs using Sentinel-3 OLCI imagery

Harmful algal bloom (HAB) caused by Magalefidinium polykrikoides becomes frequent in Korean coastal waters during the mid-1990s and is now annual events on the southern coast of Korea. HAB often leads to high rates of fish mortality and subsequent economic losses in aquaculture. In addition, non-harmful algal blooms (non-HABs) caused by the dinoflagellate Alexandrium sp., Mesodinium rubrum, and the diatom Skeletonema sp. occur simul-taneously in time and space. Because HAB and non-HABs are difficult to discriminate using multi-band satellite data, most previous studies have attempted only detection or qualitative classification with limited data. In contrast, in this current study, we aimed to quantitatively discriminate M. polykrikoides bloom associated HAB from non-HABs around the southern coast of Korea using a convolutional neural network (CNN) model with Sentinel-3 Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) imagery with a spatial resolution of 300 m and 16 spectral bands for the first time. To identify the effect of non-HAB patches on the performance of the CNN model, five CNN models were trained with OLCI images as input and ground-truth HAB maps as output data. The appropriate figure-of-merits values (FOMs) with sensitivity of 0.53, precision of 0.92, and F-measure of 0.67 were reasonable when the CNN model trained using the dataset with the highest ratio of non-HABs patches was applied to HAB images. Even when non-HAB images were applied to the models, the CNN model exhibited the lowest error pixel count. Therefore, we confirmed that the CNN model, which can discriminate red tide blooms with subtle dif-ferences between the spectrum bands and spatial characteristics, helps solve the complexity and ambiguity in discriminating HAB from non-HABs.