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This study compares the suitability of different satellite-based vegetation indices (VIs) for environmental hazard assessment of municipal solid waste (MSW) open dumps. The compared VIs, as bio-indicators of vegetation health, are normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), soil adjusted vegetation index (SAVI), and modified soil adjusted vegetation index (MSAVI) that have been subject to spatiotemporal analysis. The comparison has been made based on three criteria: one is the exponential moving average (EMA) bias, second is the ease in visually finding the distance of VI curve flattening, and third is the radius of biohazardous zone in relation to the waste heap dumped at them. NDVI has been found to work well when MSW dumps are surrounded by continuous and dense vegetation, otherwise, MSAVI is a better option due to its ability for adjusting soil signals. The hierarchy of the goodness for least EMA bias is MSAVI> SAVI> NDVI with average bias values of 101 m, 203 m, and 270 m, respectively. Estimations using NDVI have been found unable to satisfy the direct relationship between waste heap and hazardous zone size and have given a false exaggeration of 374 m for relatively smaller dump as compared to the bigger one. The same false exaggeration for SAVI and MSAVI is measured to be 86 m and-14 m, respectively. So MSAVI is the only VI that has shown the true relation of waste heap and hazardous zone size. The best visualization of distance-dependent vegetation health away from the dumps is also provided by MSAVI.

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Freshwater reservoirs are limited and facing issues of over-exploitation, climate change effects and poor maintenance which have serious consequences for water quality. Developing countries face the challenge of collecting in situ information on ecological status and water quality of these reservoirs due to constraints of cost, time and infrastructure. In this study, a practical method of retrieval of two water clarity indicators, total suspended matter and secchi disk depth, using Sentinel-2 satellite data is adopted for preliminary assessment of water quality and trophic conditions in Khanpur reservoir, Pakistan. The study explores the synergy of utilizing two independent models, i.e., case 2 regional coast color analytical neural network model and semiempirical remote sensing algorithms to understand the spatiotemporal dynamics of water clarity patterns in the dammed reservoir, in the absence of ground measurements. The drinking water quality and trophic state of the reservoir water is determined based purely on satellite measurements. Out of the five months studied, the reservoir water has high turbidity and poor eutrophic status in three months. The results from both computational models are compared, which exhibit a high degree of statistical agreement. The study demonstrates the effective utilization of relevant analytical and semiempirical methods on satellite data to map water clarity indicators and understand their dynamics in both space and time. This solution is particularly useful for regions where routine ground sampling and observation of environmental variables are absent.

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