Exploring the potential of MODIS visible and thermal channels in monitoring and assessing the impact of desalination plant discharges in the Arabian Gulf

Abstract

Sea water desalination has experienced an unprecedented growth in the GCC countries to meet the ever growing demand of water for household consumption as well as for industrial and agricultural purposes. However, the current technologies used in water desalination are also accompanied by negative environmental impacts especially on the surrounding marine ecosystems. Since major seawater desalination plants are located by the shoreline, the main environmental considerations in desalination are water intakes and sea outfall discharges. We intent through this study to evaluate the potential of current polar orbiting satellites in evaluating the impact of desalination plant discharges, usually used to dispose of brine waste stream, on surrounding ecosystems and water quality. The objective of this project is to develop an automated approach for monitoring water quality and temperature (thermal properties) surrounding the discharges of desalination plants in the UAE coastal areas. Visible and thermal measurements provided by MODIS sensors on board of Terra and Aqua satellites are used in this project. The first four bands (visible) and band 31 & 32 (thermal) were selected. Future multi-spectral data from DubaiSat-1 (5-m resolution) will be also used to detect small changes in water color that cannot be detected with the MODIS data (250 m).Index Terms-environmental impact, remote sensing, desalination plants, MODIS, water quality.

Contribution of Remote Sensing Technologies to a Holistic Coastal and Marine Environmental Management Framework: A Review

“…The common impacts of their effluent are water intakes, sea outfall discharges, and harmful algal blooms that can be detected and monitored through the potential use of RS. For a large-scale area, [114] used MODIS visible and thermal channels as an SRS application to assess the impact in the Arabian Gulf. Al Shehhi et al, 2017 [113] provided a list of satellites commonly used in ocean colour applications and their characteristics, and [153] presented a guide to the management of desalination impacts.…”

Environmental Assessment of Natural & Anthropogenic Hazards and Impact on Seawater Desalination along Red Sea Coast of Saudi Arabia

“…During the last decade, multiple research delineating temporal variations in the physical and chemical characteristic parameters of the Red Sea was carried out to study the impact of desalination on the seawater. Results of these studies identified significant adverse environmental degradation causing deterioration to the seawaters, the coastlines, and the prevailing aquatic marine ecosys-tems [7][8][9][10][11][12]. Preliminary results of the study have been presented as poster # NH31A-1526 in the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting of December 2011 [13].…”