QUANTITATIVE ESTIMATION OF WATER CONSTITUENTS

IN LIGNITE OPEN CAST RESIDUAL LAKES WITH INVERSE MODELING *

C. Olbert and J. Fischer

Institute for Space Sciences
Free University Berlin
Carl-Heinrich-Becker-Weg 6-10
12165 Berlin, Germany
J. Frauendorf and C. Gler
Institute of Geography
Martin-Luther-University Halle -Wittenberg
Domstr. 5
06108 Halle/Saale, Germany

ABSTRACT
After the reunification of Germany most of the lignite open cast mines in Central
Germany were closed and the reclamation of these usually irreversible destroyed
landscapes was started. Mining is one of the most intense interventions into an
environmental system, and therefore those mines are in a quite special geochemical and
hydrological condition. For instance, as part of lignite open cast mines residual lakes are
very acid caused by the pyrite oxidation during the mining activities and ascending ground
water after the closing. In addition some lignite open cast mines will be flooded by
surface water why open cast residual lakes show highest dynamical changes. This
problem exists worldwidely and implies a high ecological risk for lignite open cast residual
lakes.
For the investigation of residual lakes in such special situated mining areas a
monitoring of all relevant water constituents and their quantitative estimation is required.
For that purpose, the Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager (casi) was flown several
times in combination with additional ground experiments, and a semi-analytical algorithm
based on an inverse modeling method was developed for the quantitative analysis of the
water quality. The retrieval of the water constituents tripton, chlorophyll-a, and yellow
substance was done by a neural network, and a radiative transfer model which
incorporates the optical properties of the investigated water constituents. This model
serves as an instrument for the efficient monitoring of geochemical and hydrological
processes which take place in residual lakes, and enables a suitable environmental
planning for closed lignite open cast mines.
*

Presented at the Fifth International Airborne Remote Sensing Conference, San Francisco,
California, 17-20 September 2001.

1.0 INTRODUCTION
During the last decade the quantitative estimation of water constituents by remote sensing
became a more and more common task due to several reasons: meanwhile, there exist a number of
established techniques for the retrieval of substance concentrations based on empirical, semi-empirical or
analytical (Dekker, 1993; Doerffer and Fischer, 1994; Schaale et al., 1998) methods for coastal or inland
waters. The corrections which have to be applied to remote sensing data such as atmospheric or
geometric corrections are becoming more and more precise, and are close to be operational today
(Schaale et al., 1999). Only the knowledge about the optical properties of the investigated water
constituents is still poor and needs to be improved continuously (Dekker, 1993; Gege, 1994). In the case
of a semi-empirical and analytical retrieval of water constituents, it is a necessary prerequisite. The
optical properties must be established by measurements for every kind of water body depending on the
specific composition of optically active substances. Therefore it is an especially challenging task to
investigate lignite open cast residual lakes with their specific composition and concentration ranges of
water constituents as well as their high importance for closed mining areas.
The intense use of lignite open cast mines in Central Germany in the last decades led to an
enormous mass deficit. After the reunification, most of those mines were closed due to supply of energy
from other, especially nuclear sources. After the closing of lignite open cast mines, lakes formed by
ascending ground water. These arising lakes are extremely acid caused by the oxidation of pyrite and
marcasite minerals of the sediment. Additionally, those residual lakes were or will be flooded by surface
water filling the existing mass deficit. Therefore, the residual lakes have special hydrochemical and
hydrobiological condition and show particularly high dynamics in the spatial distribution of their water
constituents. The high ecological risk arising from such lakes as part of the process of re-cultivation of
mining areas requires an efficient monitoring of the water quality parameters. They consist of tripton,
gelbstoff, and chlorophyll-a mainly. The work presented here shows how to estimate water constituents in
lignite open cast residual lakes quantitatively with inverse modeling based on a semi-analytical method.
2.0 DATA ACQUISITION
For the following data analysis a number of measurements is required. There were airborne, field
and laboratory measurements realized in the study area selected for an investigation of all relevant
parameters needed to apply the inverse modeling to remote sensing data.
2.1 STUDY AREA
The study area is the mining area Goitsche located in Central Germany near Bitterfeld just
southwest of the reservoir of river Mulde. It was closed in 1990. This area consists of four residual
hollow forms: Mhlbeck, Niemegk, Dbern, and Brenhof (see Figure 1). Three of them, excluding
Brenhof, were filled with ascending ground water. On 7 May 1999, the flooding of the lake Mhlbeck
was started with surface water coming from the reservoir of river Mulde. Afterwards, small channels

were used to fill also lake Niemegk first, lake Dbern second, and lake Brenhof last. Today, all four
residual hollow forms are filled with water at a level of 65 m N.N.

Figure 1. Panchromatic IRS scene of the lignite open cast mining area Goitsche
with sampling locations taken on 8 August 1998
2.2 AIRBORNE MEASUREMENTS
More than a dozen airborne measurement campaigns were realized using a Cessna 207T and a
Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager (casi) (Babey and Anger, 1989; Anger et al., 1994) from the
year 1998 until today. One of the main interests is to obtain a time series that includes the condition of the
residual lakes before, during and after the flooding process. For the presentation here the measurement
campaign on 17 August 1998 was chosen. To cover the entire study area with an adequate spatial
resolution of 3 m x 3 m, the remote sensing data were sampled using six flight tracks. During all
campaigns, casi was operated in the hyperspectral mode with 48 bands covering the spectral region from
428 nm up to 975 nm. The measured raw data were calibrated after Keller and Fischer (1998). Before
applying a data analysis, the casi radiances were corrected for the atmospheric influences to obtain the
surface reflectance needed in the further analysis. This was done after Schrder et al. (2000), using
additional atmospheric measurements from the ground with SAFIR (Sonnen-Aureolen-FilterRadiometer) simultaneously to the casi measurements. Next, these reflectance data were corrected
geometrically and also rectified to build a mosaic of the entire study area using the recorded GPS position
and the corresponding observation geometry for each pixel. Data analysis was restricted to the water
surface.
2.3 FIELD MEASUREMENTS
In situ measurements were carried out with an OCEAN OPTICS SD1000 spectrometer to
measure the upwelling radiance in different water depths (5, 15, and 25 cm). Ten spectra were collected
for each depth. The average was referenced to a reflectance standard above the water to obtain
reflectance spectra. These were extrapolated from different depths to the water surface.
Beside those spectral measurements, vertical profiles of pH value, conductivity, dissolved oxygen
and temperature were determined at each sampling station. Also the secchi depth was measured, and

water samples were collected from the water surface down to the secchi depth of the sampling station.
Acidity and alkalinity was measured on water samples. A part of the water sample was filtered through a
0,45 m filter for analysis. All water samples were sealed and transported to a laboratory.
2.4 LABORATORY MEASUREMENTS
In the laboratory, the water samples were analyzed for total Fe, dissolved Fe(II), dissolved
Fe(III), Na, Al, Cd, Cu, Cr, Ni, Zn, K, Ca, Mg, Mn, sulphate, chloride and DOC/DIC. The analysis results
allow to characterise the hydrochemical condition of each lake. The determination of chlorophyll,
suspended matter (organic and inorganic), TOC, TIC and total iron concentration were carried out on
unfiltered water samples.
Spectrometric measurements were performed on the water samples with a double beam
spectrometer of Zeiss. Absorption spectra of dissolved matter were determined with the cuvette method.
Absorption spectra of phytoplankton and tripton (inorganic suspended matter and dead organic matter)
were estimated with the filterpad method after Mitchell and Kiefer (1988).
3.0 DATA ANALYSIS
The data analysis presented here
consists of a lake classification first, before
the casi remote sensing data were analyzed
by inverse modeling for the quantitative
estimation of water constituents. The
processing scheme of the inverse modeling is
given in Figure 2.
Using the optical properties measured
in the field and the laboratory radiative
transfer calculations were performed to set up
a database for each stage (class) of a lignite
open cast residual lake. The parameterization
of the radiative transfer model was validated
by the spectral field measurements. Then, for
each specific stage, randomly chosen data out
of each database were used for the training of
a specific neural network. Other randomly
chosen data were taken for an independent
test of the neural network before
radiometrically and atmospherically corrected
casi data could be presented to the neural
network. As a result of the recall a triple of
concentrations results for each pixel of the
casi image.

SIMULATION

MEASUREMENT
casi
casidata
data

Optical
Opticalproperties
properties

(Radiances)
(Radiances)

Atmospheric
Atmospheric
correction
correction

Radiative
Radiativetransfer
transfer
calculations
calculations

MOMO
MOMO
database
database

casi
casidata
data

(Reflectances)
(Reflectances)

INVERSION
Neural
Neuralnetwork
network
(for
(foreach
eachstage)
stage)

Concentrations
Concentrationsof
of
water
waterconstituents
constituents

Figure 2. Inverse modelling scheme

3.1 LAKE CLASSIFICATION

As a first step of the data analysis, lignite open cast residual lakes were classified into five
different stages depending on their hydrochemical and hydrobiological properties. The classification
scheme was applied on the casi data after Frauendorf et al. (2001).
3.2 DATABASE GENERATION
For each stage of a lignite open cast residual lake a database must be generated for the training
of a neural network as part of the inverse modeling scheme. For that, the optical properties of the
simulated water constituents must be known. Here, the absorption coefficients of tripton, gelbstoff and
chlorophyll-a were measured while the scattering coefficient for tripton was derived empirically from the
absorption measurements. The scattering coefficients for pure water were taken from Pope and Fry
(1997), and for chlorophyll-a from Dekker (1993). After first calculations with the radiative transfer code
MOMO (Matrix-Operator-Method), a root mean square error (RMSE) of less than 0,9 results for the
comparison between simulation and measurement. After detailed investigations, we found out that a
constant backscattering-scattering-ratio of 2% for the tripton is not adequate. Using the reflectance
spectra measured in the field and varying the backscattering-scattering-ratio, a tripton-concentration- and
wavelength-depending backscattering-scattering-ratio could be derived were the comparison fits best.
Therefore, this inverse modeling method should be called semi-analytical. As an example, a comparison of
three field measured and simulated reflectance spectra using a tripton- and wavelength-depending
backscattering-scattering-ratio is given in Figure 3 for the early stage. A RMSE of higher than 0,983 can
be seen for any case.

Figure 3. Comparison between three field measured and simulated reflectance spectra of the early stage
After the validation of the parametrization of MOMO for each stage, a database was generated
where the observation geometry as well as the concentrations of the three simulated water constituents
were varied in realistic ranges. The concentration minima are always set to 0.0 while the concentration
maxima are shown in Table 1 for each stage. They were chosen by the results of the water sampling and
the existing experience at local authorities.
Table 1. Concentration maxima chosen for the three simulated water constituents per stage

Stage
Initial stage
Early stage
Transitional stage I
Transitional stage II
Late stage

Tripton
[mg/l]
10
10
5
30
10

Gelbstoff
[a/m] @ 440 nm
30
10
1
10
10

Chlorophyll-a
[g/l]
30
30
10
10
60

3.3 NEURAL NETWORK APPLICATION

The five neural networks used for the inverse modeling are each a feedforward network based
on the backpropagation learning algorithm (Rumelhart and McClelland, 1986). The network architecture
consists of three layer with neurons an input layer, a hidden layer and an output layer. Each neuron of
the input layer is connected with each neuron of the hidden layer and each neuron of the hidden layer is
connected with each neuron on the output layer. While the number of neurons for the input and output
layer are fixed by the problem under investigation, the optimum number of hidden neurons has to be found
individually. Here, we have chosen ten neurons for the hidden layer. Some other parameter were also
adjusted to the problem, e.g. the spectral range was reduced to 440 nm to 730 nm, excluding atmospheric
absorption bands. In total, 20 spectral reflectances were used for the data analysis.
During a so-called training phase, the weights between the neurons as well as some other
parameters has to be found enabling best results for the output (tripton, gelbstoff and chlorophyll-a
concentration). Therefore, an error function compares the neural network output with the triple of
concentrations which was used for the simulation of the presented input vector of reflectances and
observation geometry. The neural network architecture during its training phase is shown in Figure 4.
Error correction

20 x
Reflectance
Tripton
Solar zenith
MOMO
MOMO
database

Gelbstoff
Solar to observer
azimuth difference
Observer zenith

Tripton
Gelbstoff
Chlorophyll-a

Chlorophyll-a

Error
function

Figure 4. Neural network architecture in the training phase

After the training phase where an approximation of the functional relationship between input and output of
the neural network is found, the neural network is ready for recall within its so-called recall phase. There,
real world data (casi data) will be presented to the input layer to obtain a resulting triple of concentrations
of water constituents on the output layer. The neural network architecture for the recall phase can be
seen in Figure 5.

20 x
Reflectance
casi data
data

Tripton
Solar zenith
Gelbstoff

and
Solar to observer
observation
observation azimuth difference
geometry
geometry
Observer zenith

Chlorophyll-a

Figure 5. Neural network architecture in the recall phase

4.0 RESULTS
The very first results of the described method show the estimated tripton (see Figure 6), gelbstoff
(see Figure 7) and chlorophyll-a (see Figure 8) concentrations for the lakes of the lignite open cast mining
area Goitsche on 17 August 1998 as a result of the casi data analysis by inverse modeling. The spatial
distribution of all concentrations is quite homogeneous for each lake but show different concentration
ranges between the lakes especially for gelbstoff and chlorophyll-a. Lake Mhlbeck shows a
heterogeneous distribution of all water constituent concentrations which could be related to the low water
level of that lake. Bottom-up effects might be present, or sediments at the ground might be the reason.
After starting the flooding process, the water level increase and such influences decrease or disappears.
Unfortunately, the poor b/w-quality of the presented figures allows just a reduced visual
recognition of resulting concentration features.

Figure 6. Estimated tripton concentration for the lakes of the lignite open cast mining area
Goitsche from 17 August 1998 as a result of the casi data analysis by inverse modelling

Figure 7. Estimated gelbstoff concentration for the lakes of the lignite open cast mining area
Goitsche from 17 August 1998 as a result of the casi data analysis by inverse modelling

Figure 8. Estimated chlorophyll-a concentration for the lakes of the lignite open cast mining area Goitsche
from 17 August 1998 as a result of the casi data analysis by inverse modelling
5.0 CONCLUSION
The quantitative estimation of water constituents in lignite open cast residual lakes with inverse
modeling was successfully applied. Intensive measurement campaigns realized by all partners of the
project enable the set up of a radiative transfer model to simulate the reflectance spectra at the water
surface depending on the measured optical properties of the simulated water constituents. After
parameterization of the model, the comparison with reflectance spectra measured in situ shows
differences between measurement and simulation. The following investigation reveals the necessity of a
tripton- and wavelength-depending backscattering-scattering-ratio of tripton. Then, an agreement of more
than 98% between measurement and simulation could be achieved. Using the model for the generation of
a database by varying the observation geometry as well as the water constituent concentrations within
given ranges, enables the training of a neural network. Afterwards, the trained neural network could be
used for the retrieval of concentrations by the recall with remote sensing data collected with the casi.
This inversion process was applied for five different stages of lignite open cast residual lakes based on
their hydrochemical and hydrobiological condition.
The applied inverse modeling method allows the determination of water constituent
concentrations depending on the actual stage of the residual lake. It opens the possibility for a spatial and
temporal monitoring of the study area to assess the ecological situation of such special situated inland
waters as part of the re-cultivation process of closed mining areas. However, a detailed validation of the
algorithm as well as an application onto the existing data sets of more than a dozen measurement
campaigns is still needed and will be the work in the next future.
6.0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work is funded by the Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) Leipzig-Halle (FKZ 04/98)
since June 1998 and is supported scientifically by the sections Water Research and Hydrogeology of the
UFZ. Moreover, a co-operation with the Lusatian and Central German Mining Administration Company

(LMBV) exists. We are also grateful for the help of many co-workers who have performed the
measurements in the field and did also many routine processing steps.
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