The concentration of chlorophyll a was determined using several methods: in situ using a Pump Probe immersion fluorometer (PrimProd-EcoMonitor, Veliparib Russia, in accordance with the methodology developed by Falkowski and Kiefer, 1985 and Falkowski et al., 1986; see also Ostrowska, 2001 and Matorin

et al., 2004); in samples of lake water using HPLC ( Stoń-Egiert & Kosakowska 2005), and the standard spectrophotometric technique (e.g. Jeffrey & Humphrey 1975) (for details, see Ficek 2012). 235 sets of data points obtained from simultaneous measurements of the reflectance spectra Rrs(λ), chlorophyll a concentrations Ca, suspended particulate matter concentrations CSPM, and absorption spectra aCDOM(λ) were used in the analysis and interpretation of the remote sensing reflectance spectra Rrs(λ) described in Ficek et al. (2011) and in the present paper. The waters of the Pomeranian lakes investigated in this study differ widely in their contents of optically active components (OAC); consequently, Selleck PLX3397 their spectral optical properties

are also different. As in most inland and coastal sea waters, the OAC they contain consist of suspended particulate matter (SPM) and coloured dissolved organic matter (CDOM), usually in large concentrations. On the basis of numerous empirical investigations (to be presented below), these waters can be conventionally classified into three types differing in their optical properties, although this distinction is not a sharp one – waters with properties intermediate between these types have also been recorded. In waters of Type I OAC concentrations are relatively low: SPM (including phytoplankton1) is dominant and the concentration of CDOM2 is relatively low (Table 2). The optical properties of these waters are similar to those

of Baltic waters (see e.g. Kowalczuk et al., 1999 and Ficek et al., 2011). The waters Etofibrate we designated as Type II (humic lakes3) have a very high CDOM concentration, so high that the light attenuation coefficient and other properties of such waters are completely dominated by the light absorption aCDOM in practically the whole spectral range of visible light. Our Type III lake waters are supereutrophic, in which the OAC is dominated by phytoplankton; for practical purposes the absorption/scattering properties of this phytoplankton determine the optical properties of such waters (see Table 2). Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3 and Figure 4 illustrate light absorption spectra in the surface waters of the lakes investigated. Figures 1a and b emphasize above all the very great differentiation in the absorption properties of these waters due to the large differences in OAC concentrations in them.