REMOTE SENSING APPLICATIONS FOR WATER RESOURCES.

Abstract: Whether for irrigation, power generation, drinking, manufacturing, or recreation, water is oneof our most critical resources. Visual Image interpretation can be used in a variety of waystohelpmonitor the quality, quantity, and geographic distribution of this resource and alsodeciphering ground water with help from aerial photograph.Sediment pollution is often clearly depicted on aerial and space images. Materials that formfilms on the water surface, such as oil films, can also be detected through the use of aerial andsatellite images. Normal colours or ultraviolet aerial photography is often employed for thedetection of oil films on water.Thick oil slicks have a distinct brown or black colour. Thinner oil sheens and oil rainbows havea characteristic silvery sheen or iridescent colour banding but do not have a distinct brown orblack colour.Jharkhand State now a days is affected with ground water scarcity forcing the people todepend on the surface water like lakes, rivers etc. which are polluted like Damodar river andSuwarnrekha river. Damodar river flowing through coal fields is affected with sedimentpollution carrying coal mining wastes leading to lowering of water level from November toJune.In this paper, we are concerned principally with the use of visual image interpretation in waterpollution detection, and deciphering of groundwater withspecialreference to Jharkhand Stateof India. Introduction: Water pollution is any physical or chemical change in water that can adversely affectorganisms. It is a global problem, affecting both the industrialized and thedevelopingnations.It is harmful to humans, animals, todesireable aquatic life or otherwise causes significantdepartures from the normal activities of various living communities in or near the bodies of thewater.All naturally occurring water contains some impurities. Water is considered polluted when thepresence of impurities is sufficient to limit its use for a given domestic and /or industrialpurpose. Not all pollutants are the result of human activity. Natural sources of pollutioninclude such things as minerals leached from soil and decaying vegetation. When dealing with water pollution, it is appropriate to consider two types of sources: point and non point. Pointsources are highly localized, such as industrial outfalls. Non-point sources, such as fertilizerand sediment runoff from agricultural fields, mining wastes, have large and dispersed sourceareas.It is rarely possible to make a positive identification of the type and concentration of apollutant by visual image interpretation alone ( Lillesand and Kiefer,2000). However, it ispossible to use visual image interpretation to identify the point at which a discharge reaches abody of water and to determine thegeneraldispersion characteristics of its plume. In someinstances, such a s the case of sediment suspended in water, it is possible to make validobservations about sediment concentrations using quantitative radiometry coupled with thelaboratory analysis of selectivewater samples.

Sediment pollution is often clearly depicted onaerial and space images.According to Verner (1977) the detection of pollutants in water is more complex because thelight attenuation characteristics of water limit detection of below-surface pollutants to thevisible and near-visible portions of the spectrum. Even for surface pollutants, detection is oftendifficult, because the characteristic scattering or reflection of sunlight by pollutants is afunction of the state of surface roughness as well as the angle of incident and reflectedsunlight. Also, many dissolved chemicals have no spectral signature detectable through remoteanalysis. On the other hand, there are classes of pollutants that may be detected when watersurface conditions and sun angle permit. These are particulates, algae, petroleum products,and thermal anomalies.Materials that form films on the water surface, such as oil films, can also be detected throughthe use of aerial and satellite images. Oil enters the worlds water bodies from a variety of sources including natural seeps, municipal and industrial waste discharges, urban runoff, andrefinery and shipping losses and accidents. Thick oil slicks have a distinct brown and blackcolour. Thinner oil sheens and oil rainbows have a characteristic silvery sheen or iridescentcolour banding but do not have a distinct brown and black colour (Lillesand and Kiefer,2000).Direct human interventions over the years have lead to reduction in groundwater recharge.These include deforestation, destruction of local water systems (including traditional watersystems, e.g. ponds, tanks, lakes, wetlands and so on). Deforestation also leads to change inriver flow regime in the affected area that also affects the recharge in the given area.There are larger and indirect human interventions that has also affected the groundwaterrecharge systems, including urbanization, concretization of more and more land, the thosefactors that lead to global warming also contribute in reduction in groundwater levels asevapo-transpiration needs are higher when temperatures go up, leading to more groundwateruse.Mining also leads to destruction of groundwater recharge systems in the mined areas. In factmining areas (like Jharkhand) groundwater is many times unnecessarily pumped out to the nearby rivers so that mining becomes possible. A knowledge of groundwater location is important for both water supply and pollution controlanalysis. Groundwater is one of the most important source of water. Almost 85% of the ruralwater supply in India is dependent on groundwater (Ministry of rural Development, governmentof India). Remote sensing plays a vital role in delineating potential areas of groundwateroccurrence for detailed exploration, thus reducing the cost and time involved in groundwaterexploration. Potential groundwater areas cannot be seen on satellite images directly. The clueto the groundwater search is the fact that sub-surface geological elements forming aquifershave almost invariable surface expressions, which can be detected by remote sensingtechniques (Joseph,2005). Satellite data provide information about geomorphic features,structures, land uses and rock types (in a few cases) indicating the presence of groundwater.Some selected

landforms and structural features that are indicators for potential groundwaterzones are valley fills, palaeochannels, alluvial fans, dykes, interdunal depression etc. APPLICATION OF REMOTE SENSING IN ENVIRONMENT: 1. Meteorology profiling of atmospheric temp. and water vapor measuring wind velocity 2. Oceanography measurements of sea surface temperature mapping ocean currents 3. Glaciology mapping motion of sea ice and ice sheets determining the navigability of the sea 4. Geology identification of rock types location of geological faults and anomalies 5. Agriculture monitoring the extend and type of vegetation mapping soil types 6. Hydrology assessing water resources forecasting melt water run-off from snow 7. Disaster control warning of sand and dust storms, flooding monitoring of pollution Overview of remote sensing in environmental studies/modeling The use of remotely-sensed data in natural resources mapping and as source of input data for environmental processes modeling has been popular in recent years. With the availability of remotelysensed data from different sensors of various platforms with a wide range of spatiotemporal, radiometric and spectral resolutions has made remote sensing as, perhaps, the best source of data for large scale applications and study. In this review, we summarize some of the most commonly used applications of the technique in environmental resources mapping and modeling. Applications of remote sensing in hydrological modeling, watershed mapping, energy and water flux estimation, fractional vegetation cover, impervious surface area mapping, urban modeling and drought predictions based on soil water index derived from remotely-sensed data is reported. The review also summarizes the different eras of sensors development and remote sensing and future directions of the remote sensing applications. Remotely sensed images can be used in many applications, for example: mineral exploration

monitoring ocean currents land use planning monitoring the condition of forest and agricultural areas. Studies have focussed on mapping and monitoring changes in productivity caused by: monitoring wind erosion monitoring waterlogging monitoring the condition of remnant vegetation cereal crop yield mapping predicting salinity monitoring rangeland condition. APPLICATION OF REMOTE SENSING IN CHANGE DETECTION: The aim of this chapter is to draw an overview of change detection techniques in remote sensing earth observation. In remote sensing application, a change may be considered to as an alteration of the surface components. But temporal analysis of remote sensing image is facing several difculties, among them the large amount of data to be processed and also the very few number of temporal observations. Despite the lack of temporal model, the natural evolution of landscape and the evolution induced by the sensors, many valuable techniques exist that perform change detection from two or more images acquired from the same or from different sensors. This overview has been drawn from the CACHANT initiative supported by the GdR ISIS in 2006 and the presentation that have been given during the two meetings Abrupt Change Detection due to Major Disasters Remote sensing imagery is a precious tool for rapid mapping applications. In this context, one of the main uses of remote sensing is the detection of changes occurring after a natural or anthropic disaster. Since they are abrupt and seldom predictable, these events cannot be well temporally sampled in the Shannon sense by the polar orbit satellites which provide the medium, high and very high resolution imagery needed for an accurate analysis of the land cover. Therefore, rapid mapping is often produced by detecting the changes between an acquisition after the event and available archive data. Usual strategies for measuring changes The scientic community provides a wide variety of methods for change detection using remote sensing imagery. From the study of the different algorithms it was noted that most of these methods are structured in two major steps: Feature extraction Feature extraction consists in the processing of the available imagery in order to extract pertinent information and to emphasize the input required by the decision step. These features can be intrinsic features extracted from the images or change indicators like the difference or ratio between the input images.

 Decision function The decision function consists of the operations applied on the extracted features in order to produce the decision (i.e. change vs. no change). Finally based on this decision, the output change detection map is obtained. APPLICATION OF REMOTE SENSING IN GEOLOGICAL APP: Geologists have used aerial photographs for decades to serve as databases from which they can do the following: 1. Pick out rock units (stratigraphy) 2. Study the expression and modes of the origin of landforms (geomorphology) 3. Determine the structural arrangements of disturbed strata (folds and faults) 4. Evaluate dynamic changes from natural events (e.g., floods; volcanic eruptions) 5. Seek surface clues (such as alteration and other signs of mineralization) to subsurface deposits of ore minerals, oil and gas, and groundwater. 6. Function as a visual base on which a geologic map is drawn either directly or on a transparent overlay. With the advent of space imagery, geoscientists now can extend that use in three important ways: 1) The advantage of large area or synoptic coverage allows them to examine in single scenes (or in mosaics) the geological portrayal of Earth on a regional basis 2) The ability to analyze multispectral bands quantitatively in terms of numbers (DNs) permits them to apply special computer processing routines to discern and enhance certain compositional properties of Earth materials 3) The capability of merging different types of remote sensing products (e.g., reflectance images with radar or with thermal imagery) or combining these with topographic elevation data and with other kinds of information bases (e.g., thematic maps; geophysical measurements and chemical sampling surveys) enables new solutions to determining interrelations among various natural properties of earth phenomena. While these new space-driven approaches have not yet revolutionized the ways in which geoscientists conduct their field studies, they have proven to be indispensable techniques for improving the geologic mapping process and carrying out practical exploration for mineral and energy resources on a grand scale.