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Harmful algal blooms (HABs) of cyanobacteria are an emerging public health and ecological concern. Remote sensing is a useful tool for monitoring spatial and temporally dynamic HABs in inland waters at relatively low cost. Current remote sensing tools used for monitoring HABs utilize multispectral satellite sensors, which measure across tens of spectral bands. These existing tools measure the relative abundance of chlorophyll-a as a proxy for phytoplankton biomass and phycocyanin as a proxy for cyanobacteria biomass. Recent and upcoming hyperspectral satellite missions, measuring hundreds of spectral bands, will allow for more detailed measurements, such as discrimination among phytoplankton taxa and detailed characterization of cyanobacteria community composition. This presentation will provide an overview of these measurements as well as the importance of validation with field datasets collected in Clear Lake, California, United States, and the Greater Cape Floristic Region, South Africa. This research illustrates the potential of hyperspectral data for classifying phytoplankton and cyanobacteria populations in inland waters while identifying key areas where further research and validation are needed.