Remote Sensing Model for Monitoring Trophic State of Al Huweizah Marsh

Abstract

Remote sensing techniques were used to monitor the Trophic State Index(TSI) within Al Huweizah Marsh. The TSI is a function of Secchi depth (SD), which is a function of the spectral reflectance in Blue (TM1) and Red (TM3) spectrum bands. Satellite images of Landsat-7 ETM for February and March-2006 were selected and a series of remote sensing and digital image processing techniques and methods were applied on the selected images to extract the required data from these images. A set of measured SD and obtained spectrum reflectance from the Landsat ETM image of February-2006 were used to perform the calibration process by using the quasi-Newton optimization method. The calibrated model was applied on the marsh area by using the two selected images.Results of applying this model show that the TSI values in most of the Iraqi parts of the marsh are between 40 and 50% and increased in the Iranian and the southern part of the marsh to about 70%. The developed model can be effectively used to estimate the TSI distribution pattern within the marsh.

Keywords

• remote sensing model
• trophic state index
• al huweizah marsh