Inversion of Nutrient Concentrations Using Machine Learning and Influencing Factors in Minjiang River

Abstract

Remote sensing is widely used for lake-water-quality monitoring, but the inversion of the total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) of rivers and non-optical parameters is still a difficult problem. The use of high spatial and temporal resolution multispectral imagery combined with machine learning techniques is an effective solution for this difficulty. Three machine learning methods based on support vector regression (SVR), neural network (NN) and random forest (RF) were used to invert TN and TP using actual water-quality measurement data and Sentine-2 remote-sensing images, and analyzed the factors influencing water quality in terms of pollutant emissions and land use. The results show that RF performs the best in both TN (R2 = 0.800, RMSE = 0.640, MSE = 0.400, MAE = 0.480) and TP (R2 = 0.830, RMSE = 0.033, MSE = 0.001, MAE = 0.022) inversion models, and that the optimal selection of feature variables improves model performance. The TN and TP concentrations in the Minjiang River Meishan Water Function Development Zone were the highest in the downstream section and in 2018. Analysis of the factors influencing water quality shows that pollution sources and amounts were closely related to land-use types, and land use in riparian zones at different spatial scales had different degrees of impact on water quality.