INTEGRATED USE OF MERIS AND OTHER EO DATA FOR WATER QUALITY AND RED TIDE MONITORING ALONG UNITED ARAB EMIRATES COASTS

摘要

Coastal zones host a large percentage of globalrnpopulation and economical and productive activities andrnare in need of a constant monitoring. The C-wamsrnproject is focused at implementing a suite EO servicesrntargeting two growing sectors: Waste Water Treatmentrnand Desalination plants. The coast of the United ArabrnEmirates (UAE) hosts some of the largest desalinationrnplants in the world and their operation can affect and bernaffected by the status of the WQ near the coast: the localrnphenomenon known as Red Tide caused increasingrndamages in the last 4 years. Some actors are involved inrnthis respect in the Persian gulf, among them thernEnvironment Agency of Abu Dhabi (EAD). In UAE anrnhistorical study-case is being performed aimed atrnidentifying Red Tide events using MERIS images,rnintegrating them with other medium and higherrnresolution data. The present work describes its scenariornand the preliminary results obtained.