I’m going to share my PhD work on satellite-based optical remote sensing of surface water quality. I will begin with an overview of how this works, and then talk about my contribution to the field. In short, we retrieve surface-level spectral reflectance from satellite observations and use it to estimate water properties. Standard retrieval methods, originally developed for open-ocean monitoring, assume a flat, homogeneous surface and overlook the influence of nearby land. My work addresses this by correcting for land-scattered light using 3D radiative transfer modelling, improving satellite-based monitoring of lakes, rivers, and coastal waters. If time allows, I’ll briefly discuss my current postdoctoral work using trajectory simulations to increase the number of matches in stratospheric aerosol measurement validation.