Simon Bélanger

Université du Québec à Rimouski UQAR | uqar · Département de Biologie, Chimie et Géographie

Highlights: 1. Shallow SCMs above 30 m significantly influence remote sensing reflectance (Rrs). 2. Chlorophyll a (Chl a) maxima down to fifth light penetration depth influence Rrs. 3. Strong SCMs can lead to up to 28% increase in algorithm-derived Chl aSAT. 4. Increased Chl aSAT minimizes errors in predicted net primary production. 5. Rrs band rat...

In hydrological optics, "optical closure" means consistency between the apparent optical properties (AOPs) determined from radiometric measurements and those derived from radiative transfer modelling based on concurrently measured Inherent optical properties (IOPs) and boundary conditions (sea and sky states). Good optical closure not only provides...

In hydrological optics, "optical closure" means consistency between the apparent optical properties (AOPs) determined from radiometric measurements and those derived from radiative transfer modelling based on concurrently measured Inherent optical properties (IOPs) and boundary conditions (sea and sky states). Good optical closure not only provides...

Kelps are a dominant macrophyte group and primary producer in Arctic nearshore waters that provide significant services to the coastal ecosystem. The quantification of these services in the Arctic is constrained, however, by limited estimates of kelp depth extent, which creates uncertainties in the area covered by kelp. Here, we test the environmen...

Combinaison of optic and acoustic remote sensing to retrieve benthic reflectance for shallow water ecosystem cartography

Through this poster, I introduce my PhD project. During this research we will investigate the marine primary production of the benthic and pelagic. The aim is to create a model enable to retrieve the global primary production at a Pan-Arctic scale using remote sensing.

Les forêts de laminaires sont des écosystèmes riches et productifs, longeant les côtes des zones tempérées à polaires. Dans les eaux du golfe du Saint-Laurent, les platiers rocheux de l’île d’Anticosti abritent des forêts de laminaires qui sont encore très peu caractérisées. En 2021 et en 2022, 2 échantillonnages en plongée sous-marine ont permis d...

A global in situ data set for validation of ocean colour products from the ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI) is presented. This version of the compilation, starting in 1997, now extends to 2021, which is important for the validation of the most recent satellite optical sensors such as Sentinel 3B OLCI and NOAA-20 VIIRS. The data s...

The retreating sea ice in the coastal Arctic Ocean significantly impacts the nearshore ecosystems. The increasing sediment load in the coastal waters due to increased riverine discharge and waves-driven re-suspension has resulted in increased turbidity in many arctic coastal zones. However, cryospheric, geomorphologic, hydrologic and ocean exposure...

The seasonal and spatial variability of surface phytoplankton assemblages and associated environmental niches regarding major nutrients, physical (temperature and salinity), and optical characteristics (inherent and apparent optical properties) were investigated in an anthropized subarctic coastal bay, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence: the Bay of Sept-Î...

The Green Edge project was designed to investigate the onset, life, and fate of a phytoplankton spring bloom (PSB) in the Arctic Ocean. The lengthening of the ice-free period and the warming of seawater, amongst other factors, have induced major changes in Arctic Ocean biology over the last decades. Because the PSB is at the base of the Arctic Ocea...

Climate change has affected the Arctic Ocean (AO) and its marginal seas significantly. The reduction of sea ice in the Arctic region has altered the magnitude of photosynthetically available radiation (PAR) entering the water column, impacting primary productivity. Increasing cloudiness in the atmosphere and rising turbidity in the coastal waters o...

Pulses of ocean primary productivity during the fall season are frequent in the mid-latitudes when ocean cooling and wind-driven turbulence erode the surface stratification and allow the injection of nutrients into the euphotic zone. This phenomenon is often referred to as a phytoplankton fall bloom, and can play an essential role in the survival o...

Intertidal vegetation provides important ecological functions, such as food and shelter for wildlife and ecological services with increased coastline protection from erosion. In cold temperate and subarctic environments, the short growing season has a significant impact on the phenological response of the different vegetation types, which must be c...

Atmospheric correction of satellite optical imagery over inland waters is a key remaining challenge in aquatic remote sensing. This is due to numerous confounding factors such as the complexity of water optical properties, the surface glint, the heterogeneous nature of atmospheric aerosols, and the proximity of bright land surfaces. This combinatio...

Climate warming and related drivers of soil thermal change in the Arctic are expected to modify the distribution and dynamics of carbon contained in perennially frozen grounds. Thawing of permafrost in the Mackenzie Delta region of northwestern Canada, coupled with increases in river discharge and coastal erosion, trigger the release of terrestrial...

The particulate absorption coefficient is one of the fundamental inherent optical properties describing interactions of light with material in water. Its spectral properties contain important information about chemical and biological constituents. It is often partitioned into algal and non‐algal fractions which provide useful information describing...

Climate warming and related drivers of soil thermal change in the Arctic are expected to modify the distribution and dynamics of carbon contained in perennially frozen grounds. Thawing of permafrost in the Mackenzie River watershed of northwestern Canada, coupled with increases in river discharge and coastal erosion, triggers the release of terrest...

A global in-situ data set for validation of ocean-colour products from the ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI) is presented. This version of the compilation, starting in 1997, now extends to 2021, which is important for the validation of the most recent satellite optical sensors such as Sentinel 3B OLCI and NOAA-20 VIIRS. The data s...

Ports play a central role in our society, but they entail potential environmental risks and stressors that may cause detrimental impacts to both neighboring natural ecosystems and human health. Port managers face multiple challenges to mitigate risks and avoid ecosystem impacts and should recognize that ports are embedded in the wider regional coas...

In most coastal waters, riverine inputs of suspended particulate matter (SPM) and colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) are the primary optically active constituents. Moderate- and high-resolution satellite optical sensors, such as the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat-8 and the MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) on Sentinel-2, offer a synopti...

The Green Edge project was designed to investigate the onset, life and fate of a phytoplankton spring bloom (PSB) in the Arctic Ocean. The lengthening of the ice-free period and the warming of seawater, amongst other factors, have induced major changes in arctic ocean biology over the last decades. Because the PSB is at the base of the Arctic Ocean...

Water quality deterioration is expected to worsen the light conditions in shallow coastal waters with increasing human activities. Temperate seagrasses are known to tolerate a highly fluctuating light environment. However, depending on their ability to adjust to some decline in light conditions, decreases in daily light quantity and quality could a...

The inherent optical properties and the optically significant constituents in nearshore zones of the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence (EGSL), eastern Canada, were systematically investigated. Dry-mass concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), phytoplankton pigments, and suspended particulate matter (SPM) were determined together with the ab...

Melting sea ice over the Arctic Ocean significantly impacts the coastal ecosystem, thereby affecting the Arctic flora and fauna, which has a long-term influence on the coastal communities dependent on them. The substantial reduction in seasonal ice cover over the Arctic Ocean has been ever-changing the coastal ecosystem dynamics, which includes the...

We present a three-step inverse model (3SAA) for estimating the inherent optical properties (IOPs) of surface waters from the remote sensing reflectance spectra, Rrs(λ). The derived IOPs include the total (a(λ)), phytoplankton (aphy(λ)), and colored detrital matter (acdm(λ)), absorption coefficients, and the total (bb(λ)) and particulate (bbp(λ)) b...

Greenland extends from 60˚ to 83˚ N, with 80% of its land mass covered by the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). This extensive latitudinal gradient is associated with concomitant environmental gradients that impact the biogeochemical properties of its coastal waters. Although the Greenland fjords have been the subject of intense study, less is known of t...

The Arctic atmosphere–surface system transmits visible light from the Sun to the ocean, determining the annual cycle of light available to microalgae. This light is referred to as photosynthetically available radiation (PAR). A known consequence of Arctic warming is the change at the atmosphere–ocean interface (longer ice-free season, younger ice),...

Pertinent environmental factors influencing the microalgal bloom during sea-ice breakup in Hudson Bay were investigated in June 2018, producing the first observations of late spring primary production in the offshore waters of this vast inland sea. Phytoplankton production was found to commence at the onset of ice melt, with surface nutrient deplet...

The MALINA oceanographic campaign was conducted during summer 2009 to investigate the carbon stocks and the processes controlling the carbon fluxes in the Mackenzie River estuary and the Beaufort Sea. During the campaign, an extensive suite of physical, chemical and biological variables were measured across seven shelf–basin transects (south–north)...

Atmospheric correction over inland and coastal waters is one of the major remaining challenges in aquatic remote sensing, often hindering the quantitative retrieval of biogeochemical variables and analysis of their spatial and temporal variability within aquatic environments. The Atmospheric Correction Intercomparison Exercise (ACIX-Aqua), a joint...

Coastal waters are among the most productive regions in the Arctic (Leu et al. 2015; Smola et al. 2017; Ardyna et al. 2020). In these areas, a strong coupling exists between the sea and the land, and the shallow depths create a tight pelagic-benthic coupling (McGovern et al. 2020). These regions are also critical breeding and foraging grounds for m...

The study aims to classify the coastline of Manicouagan Peninsula, QC using WaterSat Imaging Experiment (WISE) hyperspectral imagery. A probabilistic pixel-based spectral classification scheme is integrated with contextual spatial pattern regularization using Bayesian MAP approach.

The data acquisition and initial spectroradiometric assessment of an airborne hyperspectral data set acquired with the novel WISE sensor for the mapping of a shallow aquatic environment in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is described.

The Hudson Bay System (HBS), the world’s largest inland sea, has experienced disproportionate atmospheric warming and sea-ice decline relative to the whole Arctic Ocean during the last few decades. The establishment of almost continuous positive atmospheric air temperature anomalies since the late 1990s impacted its primary productivity and, conseq...

Hudson Bay has so far received little attention during the spring peak of microalgal growth, although it holds 10% of the seasonal ice cover found in the Arctic Ocean and provides a habitat for large populations of migratory birds and marine mammals. Furthermore, Hudson Bay is expected to undergo rapid changes in the timing and distribution of the...

Algae are farmed or foraged to be used directly as food or other industrial applications such as production of biofuels, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, etc. Floating algae acts as rafts to transport invertebrates, thereby maintaining biodiversity. It also play a potentially significant role in the organic carbon export from the coastal to the deep oce...

Diverse prokaryotic communities consume and transform a broad suite of molecules in the dissolved organic matter (DOM) pool, which controls major biogeochemical cycles. Despite methodological advancements that provide increasingly more detailed information on the diversity of both prokaryotic communities and DOM components, understanding how these...

The MALINA oceanographic campaign was conducted during summer 2009 to investigate the carbon stocks and the processes controlling the carbon Fluxes in the Mackenzie River estuary and the Beaufort Sea. During the campaign, an extensive suite of physical, chemical and biological variables was measured across seven shelf–basin transects (south-north)...

Climate changes in the Arctic may weaken the currently tight pelagic-benthic coupling. In response to decreasing sea ice cover, arctic marine systems are expected to shift from a ‘sea-ice algae–benthos' to a ‘phytoplankton-zooplankton’ dominance. We used mollusc shells as bioarchives and fatty acid trophic markers to estimate the effects of the red...

Satellite remote sensing offers a unique opportunity to gain insight into seasonally and spatially dynamic processes in Arctic coastal ecosystems. It can be used to estimate key water quality parameters, including suspended particulate matter (SPM) concentration with a higher temporal resolution and synoptic coverage. The present study aims to...

The St. Lawrence is a vast and complex socio-ecological system providing a wealth of services that sustain numerous economic sectors. This ecosystem is subject to significant human pressures that overlap and potentially interact with climate-driven environmental changes. Our objective in this paper was to systematically characterize the distributio...

Climate model projections suggest a substantial decrease of sea ice export into the outflow areas of the Arctic Ocean over the 21st century. Fram Strait, located in the Greenland Sea sector, is the principal gateway for ice export from the Arctic Ocean. The consequences of lower sea ice flux through Fram Strait on ocean dynamics and primary product...

The Greenland sector of the Arctic has large permanently open water areas and therefore, has the highest total annual phytoplankton production in the pan-Arctic (above 66°N) 1. However, the Greenland Sea located in this sector is also exposed to major Arctic sea ice export. What are the impacts of the exported Arctic Sea ice on the regional ocean d...

Advances in Earth Observation technologies, particularly hyperspectral remote sensing, can fill important gaps in the information needed about shallow coastal habitats, which are among the most productive ecosystems of the world oceans (e.g. eelgrass meadows, kelp forests, etc). The main objectives of this project were 1) to test the new WaterSAT I...

Recent advances in Earth Observation technologies are promising in bring traditional ocean-color capabilities to coastal zones. However, the biogeochemical and optical complexity that are usually found in such environments commonly hinders the retrieval of geophysical variables using generic inversion algorithms. This is particularly critical for p...

In this chapter remote sensing techniques as applied to studies of Arctic aerosol are surveyed. They include the analysis of ground and shipborne observations of atmospheric aerosol using sunphotometers and also airborne/satellite observations using optical instrumentation (lidars, imagers, radiometers).

The Green Edge initiative was developed to investigate the processes controlling the primary productivity and fate of organic matter produced during the Arctic phytoplankton spring bloom (PSB) and to determine its role in the ecosystem. Two field campaigns were conducted in 2015 and 2016 at an ice camp located on landfast sea ice southeast of Qikiq...

At the base of the marine and coastal food webs throughout the Greater Hudson Bay Marine Region are the photosynthetic organisms including phytoplankton (microscopic free-drifting algae), ice algae, macro-algae such as kelp, and coastal seagrasses (eelgrass). The production of organic matter by these various photosynthetic organisms – also called ‘...

Semi-analytical Radiative Transfer Model for shallow water under development

The Green Edge initiative was developed to investigate the processes controlling the primary productivity and the fate of organic matter produced during the Arctic phytoplankton spring bloom (PSB) and to determine its role in the ecosystem. Two field campaigns were conducted in 2015 and 2016 at an ice camp located on landfast sea ice southeast of Q...

The distribution and quality of water resources vary dramatically across Canada, and human impacts such as land-use and climate changes are exacerbating uncertainties in water supply and security. At the national level, Canada has no enforceable standards for safe drinking water and no comprehensive water-monitoring program to provide detailed, tim...

A global compilation of in situ data is useful to evaluate the quality of ocean-colour satellite data records. Here we describe the data compiled for the validation of the ocean-colour products from the ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI). The data were acquired from several sources (including, inter alia, MOBY, BOUSSOLE, AERONET-OC...

The annual phytoplankton bloom is an important marine event and its inter-annual variability can be used to monitor changes in the pelagic ecosystem. In this context, the use of a bio-regionalization analysis to objectively identify ocean areas that differ in their biological characteristics and environmental conditions may be useful to disentangle...

This report describes the scientific priorities set by the Canadian Network on Coastal, Oceans and Lake Optics Remote Sensing (NetCOLOR) that aquatic visible remote sensing can address.

A global compilation of in situ data is useful to evaluate the quality of ocean-colour satellite data records. Here we describe the data compiled for the validation of the ocean-colour products from the ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative (OC-CCI). The data were acquired from several sources (including, inter alia, MOBY, BOUSSOLE, AERONET-OC...

Arctic marine ecosystems provide numerous benefits and services of economic, societal and ecological value, including the provision of food resources, the conservation of biodiversity, carbon storage and nutrient recycling, among others. The Arc3Bio project combines the multidisciplinary skills of several experts to evaluate how climate variability...