Abstract:

The Red Sea coastal area is characterized by a wealth of natural heritage and resources that present an attractive element for tourism. It is considered one of Egypt’s important sectors for sustainable development. At present, this area witnesses an extensive and diverse activities such as; tourism, industry, harbors and fisheries. These anthropogenic activities may significantly impact the sea water quality. In this paper we estimated some water quality parameters in the surface water of the Egyptian sector of the Red Sea by processing MODIS satellite data using SeaDas software. These parameters include: Chlorophyll a concentration (Chl-a), Total Suspended Matter (TSM), and Sea Surface Temperature (SST). A field trip was conducted and several samples were collected representing different coastal water environments for validation and verification. A comparison between the derived estimates and the concurrent bio-optical in situ measurements of the same locations were performed and produced correlative results. Although the retrieved and measured Chl-a and SST are well correlated, the TSM needed an offset for reasonable correspondence. Therefore, the obtained results confirm that the enhanced sensitivity and coverage of MODIS data can provide a significant tool for accurate assessment of water quality parameters.

Keywords: Water quality parameters, MODIS data, Red Sea coast, Bio-optical measurements

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Biography:

	Ayman H. Nasr is Researcher in National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences. He is the acting Head of the Data Reception, Analysis and Receiving Station Affairs Division. His area of interest includes image processing and GIS in the different fields of Remote Sensing. He has published 22 scientific papers in various national and international journals and conferences's proceedings. He has contributed in publishing 4 atlases and participated in more than 40 projects and researches related to remote sensing fields. aymanasr@hotmail.com
	Belal M. El Leithy is the executive manager of the Earth Observation Ground Receiving Station, National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences. He is the head of image processing and GIS facilities. He has published 12 scientific papers in various national and international journals. He participated in more than 35 projects and researches related to remote sensing fields. His area of interest includes image processing and GIS applications. belal@narss.sci.eg
	Ashraf K. Helmy is Researcher in Data Reception, Analysis and Receiving Station Affairs Division, National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences. He has got his Ph.D. in information technology from Cairo University, 2005. His area of interest includes image processing, System analysis, design and implementation of GIS models. ashraf_khaled@hotmail.com

BibTex:

@ARTICLE{P1150733008,

AUTHOR = {Ayman H. Nasr and Belal M. El Leithy and Ashraf K. Helmy},

TITLE = {Assessment of Some Water Quality Parameters Using MODIS Data along the Red Sea Coast, Egypt},

JOURNAL ={ICGST International Journal on Graphics, Vision and Image Processing, GVIP},

YEAR = {2007},

VOLUME = {07},

ISSUE ={3},

PAGES={25--30}

}

(Full Paper 1 MB)