The Gulf of Mexico Alliance has developed a Governors Action Plan for the five Gulf of Mexico states to address coastal ecological and societal issues. An element of that plan is to develop EPA mandated nutrient criteria for the estuaries around the Gulf of Mexico. Estuaries are very complex and dynamic ecosystems and physical sampling activities can be very expensive for state agencies with limited resources. To aid in the determination of the type and quantity of monitoring stations and to determine their most effective placement, a variance mapping tool will be developed from a time series of NASA MODIS data products, specifically the MODIS MOD09 product. The MOD09 product consists of the two atmospherically corrected MODIS 250 m bands. There have been numerous published studies demonstrating MODIS band 1 (645 nm) has a strong correlation with suspended particles, including phytoplankton. Absorption and scattering by suspended particles, phytop lankton and CDOM all contribute to the water clarity in an estuary and their spatial and temporal distribution within an estuary can be an indicator of dynamic processes affecting eutrophication. In this study a variance map will be created for Mobile Bay and the Mississippi Sound. This map will help determine the optimal type and quantity of monitoring stations and to determine their most effective placement. These water bodies have been chosen because there are several recent and current in situ sampling efforts. The variability map will be developed as an add-on to existing software developed by NASA at Stennis Space Center, the Time Series Product Toolkit. If successful, the resulting variability maps will be uploadable to the Coastal On-line Assessment and Synthesis Tool (COAST) for access by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ). The MDEQ is currently planning a pilot project to set nutrient criteria for at least one Mississippi estuary.