The suitability of the AISA airborne imaging spectrometer for monitoring lake water quality was tested in four surveys carried out in southern Finland in 1996-1998. Altogether, 11 lakes were surveyed and the total number of stations with concurrent remote sensing and limnological measurements was 127. The ranges of the water quality variables were: the sum of chlorophyll a and phaeophytin a 1-100 microg l(-1), turbidity 0.4-26 FNU, total suspended solids 0.7-32 mg l(-1), absorption coefficient of aquatic humus at 400 nm 1.2-14 m(-1) and secchi disc transparency 0.4-7 m. For the retrieval analyses, 24 AISA channels in the 450-786 nm range with a channel width of 6-14 nm were used. The agreement between estimated and observed water quality variables was generally good and R2 for the best algorithms was in the range of 0.72-0.90 over the whole dataset. The channels used for May were, in most cases, the same as those for August, but the empirical parameters of the algorithms were different. After seasonal grouping, R2 varied from 0.84 to 0.95. The use of apparent reflectance instead of radiance improved the estimation of water quality in the case of total suspended solids and turbidity. In the most humic lake, the empirical algorithms tested were suitable only for the interpretation of total suspended solids and turbidity.