TY - JOUR A1 - Jechow, Andreas A1 - Bumberger, Jan A1 - Palm, Bert A1 - Remmler, Paul A1 - Schreck, Günter A1 - Ogashawara, Igor A1 - Kiel, Christine A1 - Kohnert, Katrin A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter A1 - Singer, Gabirel A. A1 - Nejstgaard, Jens C. A1 - Wollrab, Sabine A1 - Berger, Stella A. A1 - Hölker, Franz T1 - Characterizing and Implementing the Hamamatsu C12880MA Mini-Spectrometer for Near-Surface Reflectance Measurements of Inland Waters JF - Sensors N2 - In recent decades, inland water remote sensing has seen growing interest and very strong development. This includes improved spatial resolution, increased revisiting times, advanced multispectral sensors and recently even hyperspectral sensors. However, inland waters are more challenging than oceanic waters due to their higher complexity of optically active constituents and stronger adjacency effects due to their small size and nearby vegetation and built structures. Thus, bio-optical modeling of inland waters requires higher ground-truthing efforts. Large-scale ground-based sensor networks that are robust, self-sufficient, non-maintenance-intensive and low-cost could assist this otherwise labor-intensive task. Furthermore, most existing sensor systems are rather expensive, precluding their employability. Recently, low-cost mini-spectrometers have become widely available, which could potentially solve this issue. In this study, we analyze the characteristics of such a mini-spectrometer, the Hamamatsu C12880MA, and test it regarding its application in measuring water-leaving radiance near the surface. Overall, the measurements performed in the laboratory and in the field show that the system is very suitable for the targeted application. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/s24196445 VL - 24 IS - 19 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - MDPI ER -