FIX REPORT CIVIL ENGINEERING

This research conducts a remote sensing applications to know the environmental changes that have been occurred in agricultural areas in the state of Kuwait (Al-Abdali and Al-Wafra) after implementing them with recycled water. The data used for the analysis that is related to the treated water implemented to Al-Abdali and Al-Wafra, was collected from the Ministry of Public works. The Ministry provided the starting years of connecting treated water pipe lines to Al-Abdali and Al-Wafra, and the amount of treated water connected per year. Satellite images of the areas were collected from USGS Global website, which made it easier to study remotely the sites that are hard to reach in person. In order to set-up images, snap software was used to find the number of pixels and the mean NDVI (Normalized difference vegetation index). Calculations had been applied on the given data to find the area of vegetation in these two areas. The study analysis period to Al-Abdali area was covered from 2005 to 2016 and Al-Wafra area from 2009 to 2016. The results showed that there is a positive relationship between the treated water in a certain area, and the vegetation cover there, in addition to enhancing the quality of the vegetation.

Kuwait intended to find alternative water resources during the last few years; looking for renewable sources and alternatives of water under the scarcity of water resources in the state. Since Kuwait is considered a desert with dry climate and lack of water sources, the state relied on the distillation of sea water. In addition to the search for other resources and got the benefits of sewage treatment. Thus, it was oriented to take advantage of sewage, and was an option that Kuwait sought to be applied relying on the large consumption of fresh water, that is being daily used, which can be recycled from sewer into fresh water. Waste-water treatment has become the main source of irrigation in Kuwait agricultural areas (Al-Abdali, Al-Wafra). All of the studies conducted by the state of Kuwait confirmed the water quality, and suitability for agricultural production. Recycled water is used for agricultural greening projects, the productivity of agricultural projects, strategic projects like artificial lakes, and wells injection.

Recently, remote sensing (RS) technique became popular and very important to observe, manage, and evaluate the earth environment. The two types of remote sensing sensors, which are commonly used for earth observation and environmental monitoring, are passive and active sensors. The main purpose of the applications of remote sensing in environmental monitoring of the agriculture is to site a map’s spatial extent, know the vegetation conditions, and the chemical composition of area needed. The data provided by these applications are valuable to observe environmental impact evaluation within a specific agriculture site and its surrounding areas.

1.1.1

The idea of remote sensing is to become able to conduct information of a specific object, and learn the features of it from a distance, without the need of being in physical contact with the object. The data conducted consist of the information about a specific land and water surfaces, by using images through electromagnetic radiation. The electromagnetic radiations, which are emitted from the earth’s surface, are transmitted through one or multiple regions of electromagnetic spectrum.

1.1.2

Since the 1800s, remote sensors were developed by the use of cameras. The cameras were attached to balloons to take pictures of a certain area in order to obtain topographic mapping, and capture the natural and manmade features of a land’s diverse terrain.

The first artificial satellite (Sputnik 1) was released by the Soviet Union in 1957. The satellite’s main goal was to conduct data on the upper atmosphere from the orbital drag, and propagation of radio signals. In 1959 the US Military started releasing their satellites and they were able to capture the first photographs from space by cameras with film canisters. The satellites are then sent back to earth by a re-entry capsule to be captured by airplanes. In addition, it released Explorer VII, which was a satellite made to measure the heat reflected by the earth. Two satellites were launched in 1960, TIROS1 and an infrared observation satellite. In 1968 Apollo 9 was launched to capture the first multispectral images using a camera with four lenses. In 1972, Landsat 1 (Earth Resources Technology Satellite) was launched and the Coastal Zone Color Scanner launched in 1997. In 2006, two satellites were launched, Calipso to study the thickness of the clouds, and Aerosols to understand how much air pollution is present, and changes in compositions in the atmosphere. In 2013, ICESat-2 was launched to diagnose climate change by measuring ice sheet height changes. Nowadays, aircrafts, helicopters, and unmanned aerial vehicles are used for low altitude imaging.

1.1.3

Buildings, vegetation, soil, and water are known as Physical features. Knowing the physical features depends on specific disciplines such as geology, forestry, soil science, geography and urban planning. To view the physical features, sensor data (camera or radar), are used to record electromagnetic radiation released from a landscape. In order to have effective use of sensor data, it requires analyzing and interpretation to convert data collected into useful information. Interpretations are created from extracted information that consists of transformations of sensor data designed to show detailed information of a specific landscape. Figure 1 illustrates the expanded view of the process outline.

Specific information such as topography, geologic or hydrologic data, vegetation and soil are needed for the applications of remotely sensed data. The applications conducted are used to discover, clarify, and observe what is happening on earth. They observe climate change to deliver early warnings from floods, in addition to the health of oceans to deliver lifesaving help incase of an earthquake. Figure 2 illustrates the applications of the remote sensing.

The remotely sensed images are used by geologists and geophysicists to study structures, surface processes and geologic hazards. These images are also studied by hydrologists to help them show land cover patterns, soil moisture status, sediment content of lakes and rivers, ocean currents and other characteristics of water bodies. They are examined by Geographers and planners to study settlement patterns, inventory land resources, and track changes in human uses of the landscape. Agriculture scientists can also benefit from the remote sensing to study the growth, maturing, infestation and forecast their impact on crop yields. To plot boundaries of soil units, soil scientists use remotely sensed images to examine relationships between soil patterns and vegetation.

1.1.4

To have the remote sensors work efficiently, it needs to detect the electromagnetic radiation, which is the energy reflected or emitted from earth. The Electromagnetic radiation consist of two fields such as electrical field (E) and a magnetic field (H). Visible light is the most familiar form of electromagnetic radiation. It forms a small but considered as an important portion of the full electromagnetic spectrum.

Several mechanisms like changing energy levels of electrons, acceleration of electrical charges, decay of radioactive substances, and thermal motion of atoms and molecules are used to produce electromagnetic energy.

There are three different properties of electromagnetic energy [2]:

1. Wavelength: the distance from one wave crest to another.

2. Frequency: the number of crests passing through a fixed point in a specific time.

3. Amplitude: the height of each peak.

Figure 3 below shows the wavelength versus amplitude

The range of the electromagnetic spectrum starts with the gamma waves that acts as the shortest wavelengths and ends with radio, which is the longest wavelength. There are wavelengths in between such as the x-rays, ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and microwave radiation.

The Ultraviolet Spectrum is an electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength limit from 0.3 Mm to 0.38 Mm, that is between visible light and X-rays. It consists of the near ultraviolet, far ultraviolet and the extreme ultraviolet [2].

The visible spectrum is the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. The limits of this wavelength can be distinct by the sensitivity of the human eyes. The color of any object can be defined by the color of the light it reflects as shown in Figure 4 [2].

The infrared spectrum are the wavelengths that are longer than the red portion of the visible spectrum and shorter than the microwaves. [2]

The infrared spectrum consists of two categories [2]:

1. Near infrared and mid infrared radiation, which are closest to the visible spectrum.

2. Far infrared region.

The near infrared radiation is the solar radiation that is reflected from the earth’s surface. The far infrared radiation is emitted by the earth, and consists of heat and thermal energy [2]. Table 1, and Figure 5 both show the Divisions of the Electromagnetic Spectrum and its wavelength limits.

Depending on the wavelength of energy detected and the purpose of the study, the remote sensing can take one of three different forms [2].

1. Recording the reflection of solar radiation from the earth’s surface.

2. Recording radiation emitted from the earth’s surface.

3. The remote sensing instruments produces its energy, then records the reflection of that energy from the earth’s surface.

There are many difficulties to be encountered with remote sensing such as:

1. Remote sensing is not popular.

2. The data usually comes in a raw format, which require the user’s process to produce images or information they require.

3. Understanding what the data shows is required.

4. Satellite data are usually a set of large number of files that requires an enormous amount of computer disk space.

Chapter 1.1.7: Objectives of Remote sensing

Remote sensing has many advantages such as the least energy needed to be done in order to obtain data, by not having to visit a specific area. Thus, data can be obtained remotely to many areas even the difficult ones, by the ease of a person sitting on his desk. Historical archives of specific areas data could also be saved and existed to be compared, which saves time and money.

The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is an indicator that helps to obtain data of area being studied and shows if it contains live green vegetation or not.

The NDVI is calculated by the following equation:

This formula shows density of plant growth on the Earth [6].

NDVI = [6]

Red: red region

NIR: near-infrared region

-1  NDVI  +1 ;

NDVI ≥ 0 means vegetation

NDVI < 0 means no vegetation

NDVI is calculated from the Red and near-infrared light reflected by vegetation. Healthy vegetation has high near infrared reflectance and low red reflectance. While, unhealthy vegetation has less near infrared reflectance and more red reflectance. The difference between near infrared and red of a healthy vegetation is a positive value and for Unhealthy vegetation is a negative value. both unhealthy and healthy plants are shown in Figure 6 above . Figure 7 shows the spectral reflectance measurements for red and near infrared of a healthy vegetation.

The objective of this study is to find the effect of recycled water on Kuwait agricultural areas (Al-Abdali and Al-Wafra) using USGS Global Visualization Viewer for getting data (images), and the Snap Software to analyze them. Table 2 shows the areas and year of connecting treated water.

The study will start on 2005 for Al-Abdali and 2009 for Al-Wafra as one year before connecting the treated water pipelines to 2016.The problem can be formulated mathematically by getting area of vegetation and the mean NDVI (The normalized difference vegetation index) for each area.

Area of Vegetation and mean NDVI are formulated as follows:

Area of Vegetation = Area in pixels * (30*30)

NDVI = [7]

The objectives of this study are:

1. To obtain area of vegetation of Kuwait farms (Al-Abdali and al-Wafra).

2. To determine the quality of vegetation of Kuwait farms (Al-Abdali and Al-Wafra) using the normalized difference vegetation index.

3. To show the effect of treated water on (Al-Abdali and Al-Wafra).

The Remote Sensing technique was used to do applications in the state of Kuwait (Al-Abdali and Al-Wafra). Prior to that, some data were required, shown in details in section 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 After that, Snap was used for analysis, as shown in section 2.3.

The study was applied on Kuwait agricultural areas (Al-Wafra and Al-Abdali). Al-Wafra is located near the Kuwait-Saudi border, southern the state of Kuwait, whereas Al-Abdali is located near the Kuwait-Iraqi border, northern of the state of Kuwait. The source of irrigation of these areas was fresh water by water trucks. Kuwait started to connect recycled water in 2006 for Al-Abdali, and 2010 for Al-Wafra by pipelines from the DMC (Data monitoring control system) in Sulaibeya. Water connected to these areas is under the quadrilateral treatment (pure water). The recycled water became the main source of irrigation in these areas. The study will show the effect of recycled water on Al-Abdali and Al-Wafra areas and the quality of vegetation cover (NDVI) in these specific areas, using the remote sensing technique (RS).

The main purpose of this study is to show the impact of recycled water connected to agricultural areas (Al-Abdali and Al-Wafra) on its vegetation cover and its quality. The results showed that the area of vegetation in Al-Abdali area was increasing through the years 2005 and 2010, 2013 and 2016, due to the increasing amount of treated water reaching these areas. However, a minor depression in 2011 and 2012 happened due to lack of treated water reaching these areas, that was caused by the disorder in pipeline systems, that needed maintenance. The area of vegetation in Al-Wafra was increasing through the year 2009 to 2016 due to the increased amount of treated water that reached the area. The highest amount of treated water that has been connected to Al-Wafra was in 2013, due to the maintenance that was done to the pipeline system that year. The amount of treated water connected to Al-Abdali is six times more than the amount connected to Al-Wafra. Thus, the area of vegetation in Al-Abdali is two times more than Al-Wafra area. The results of NDVI of Al-Abdali shows that there was a small variation in increasing and decreasing between the years 2005 and 2015, however it kept increasing in 2016. Meanwhile, Al-Wafra had a small variation in increasing and decreasing between 2009 and 2016, which means that the quality of vegetation in Al-Abdali and Al-Wafra is decent and diverse.

To conclude, it has been noticed that remote sensing is a valuable technique, that helped knowing several information about different areas without being physically there. From the data conducted and the results discussed, it has been noticed that there is a positive relationship between the treated water in a certain area, and the vegetation cover there, in addition to enhancing the quality of vegetation. By implementing treated water to a specific known area (Al-Abdali and Al-Wafra), it has been determined that the area of vegetation does increase after the use of the treated water. In addition, the appearance of new types of plants in these areas that were not available before the use of treated water. The health of the plants can be recognized by the NDVI value, which is a set of figures from negative to positive, that can show us whether the plants in a specific area are is healthy or not and its evolution. The larger the number in the negative shows that the plants in that area are unhealthy, whereas, the larger the number in the positive shows that the plants are healthy. Finally, treated water proved its efficiency and that it can be used instead of fresh water in agriculture.