ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a case study defining Neuse River watershed and water quality. From the top of the watershed down to the Albemarle-Pamlico Sound and Estuary (APES), water runs over and through the land to gullies, streams, and the river, and ultimately to the Estuary and Sound at the River’s mouth. The key to these studies was knowledge of the materials and their mixture on the ground as resultant land cover. Land cover could then be tied to water quality parameters making Land Use Land Cover a surrogate for water quality characteristics and harnessed further studies. Seasonality of land cover and the dynamics and change can be addressed using vegetation-sensitive indices such as NDVI which combines and operates on sensor red and near-infrared spectral bands. To understand transport and fate across the APES, good aircraft- and satellite-based sensor estimates were obtained and analyzed for watercolor constituents.
