The optimization approach is one of the most promising methods for retrieval of water constituents in case 2 waters

but almost previous applications of this approach suffer from their local search techniques. In this study

a genetic algorithm is developed as a global optimization scheme to simultaneously retrieve concentrations of chlorophyll

suspended sediment and yellow substance. To separate the contributions to the radiance spectra by co exiting constituents

two reflectance ratios were embodied to the objective function

and a real valued genetic algorithm was used to optimize it. The performance of the algorithm is demonstrated with a simulated data set. Under noise free conditions

three water constituents are estimated accurately. Tests with noisy data show that the algorithm is robust against errors in the reflectance data.