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

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).