Viabilidade de estimativa de sedimentos suspensos com dados TM/Landsat-5 para o rio Araguaia

The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of integrating TM/Landsat 5 data and in situ suspended sediment concentration (SSC) data to generate empirical models for estimating SSC in the Araguaia River. The results of this assessment show that only 7 out of 9 SSC gauging stations can be used. These stations shows 70 samples with almost simultaneous TM sensor data ranging from 4 to 260 mg/l. Statistical distribution of these samples is similar to the distribution of the entire sample set available for the Araguaia River. There would be an increase of about 607% of SSC samples by each gauging station in the database, if remote sensing models were implemented. The results showed feasibility to develop remote sensing SSC estimates based in enough concurrent TM/Landsat-5 data and in situ measures, which could be used to increase the SSC sample density of the Araguaia River. Thus, the next step of this research is the development and test of these empirical models.