Assessment and Monitoring of Optically Active Water Quality Parameters on Wetland Ecosystems Based on Remote Sensing Approach: A Case Study on Harike and Keshopur Wetland over Punjab Region, India

Abstract

Wetlands play a vital role in sustainable ecological development. They hold balanced environment conditions, filter the surface and sub-surface water, and moderate the local weather condition. The current study is mainly focused on assessment and monitoring of optically active water quality parameters on wetland ecosystems over the Harike and Keshopur wetlands in Punjab region, India. Sentinel-2 multispectral imager (MSI) product have been analyzed in two phases: Pre-monsoon and Post-monsoon during period from 2018 to 2021 to extract spatial and temporal variations of water quality parameters. A normalized difference water index (NDWI) has been utilized to extract the water and non-water pixels, and the semi-analytical inversion model is used to retrieve the optically water quality parameters. The images of derived chlorophyll concentrations and total suspended matter have been found ranging from 0 to 36 mg/m3 and 0 to 156 mg/m3. This study revealed that the semi-analytical model is very helpful to identify the small scale changes in optically active constituents through using multispectral imagery. Water quality parameters monitoring is an important indicator to measure the productivity and eutrophication of the river water system. This research will help in understanding the water cycle and water conditions, and is paramount to researchers, scientists, and policy makers for sustainable management. The current study also concluded that the significant reduction of highly biodiversity wetland area is required to conserve.

Keywords

• biodiversity
• ramsar convention
• water quality
• wetland ecosystems
• wetland conservation