National Central University Master Program for Environmental Sustainable Development

Presented by: Guillermo Esquivel Advisor:

Overview Objectives Introduction Study Area What to measure? Why to measure? How to measure? Literature review

Data used Methodology Results and Discussions Conclusions Recommendations

The Gulf of Fonseca is one of the most dynamic spots on Central America, shared by three countries;El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua is scenario of constant land use changes, increase of urban developments, establishment of aquaculture industries at big scale, industrial fishery, logistics and marine transport.

This study has two major aims: First one is to investigate spatial patterns in selected water quality indicators (Turbidity and Total Suspended Solids), by using Landsat 7 ETM+ and in situ measurements The second aim is to determine temporal variations patterns in order to identify whether or not there is a factor that progressively affects to the environment or a permanent impact.

To achieve those aims the approach used is Remote Sensing application. Linear regression model to correlate physical measures and remote sensed data. In situ measurements were used taken in the same day as the satellite image of the Landsat 7 ETM+. Normalization of images to apply the model to other years

Coastal habitats alone account for approximately 1/3 of all marine biological productivity, and estuarine ecosystems the planet.
The Gulf of Fonseca is a large estuarine embayment on the Pacific coast of Central America, bordered by the countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

In El Salvador area the construction of one of the biggest ports of the region was developed from 2005 to 2008. Dredging activities to build and access channel and to deeper the turning basin. The accelerated growth rate of the urban area, and population. Untreated discharge of municipal water to the sea.

Many industries waste water discharges to the bays. The illegal cut of the mangrove forest. The grand scale shrimp aquaculture activities developed in Honduras and Nicaragua.

Port of La Union

Shrimp Ponds Mangrove Urban area

Turbidity is defined as a measure of the level of particles such as sediment, plankton, or organic by-products, in a body of water (NOAA, 2010). As the turbidity of water increases, it becomes denser and less clear due to a higher concentration of these light-blocking particles.

The greater the amount of total suspended solids in the water, the murkier it appears the higher the measured turbidity. Suspended matter such as clay, silt, and organic matter, as well as plankton and other microscopic organisms, which interfere with the passage of light through the water, can cause Turbidity.

Increased turbidity affects a stream and the organisms that live in it in many ways and if the water becomes too turbid, it loses the ability to support life. Reduced plant matter means less food and habitat for herbivorous organisms such as snails, insects and juvenile fish.

Suspended solids also provide adsorption surfaces and a route of transmission for many organic contaminants, heavy metals, and some nutrients.

(Source T. Jensen, 1996)

(Source T. Jensen, 1996)

Traditionally water samples are taken for laboratory analysis. (more precise but expensive) Nowadays we have better understanding of the relationships between the light response and the physical properties of the water bodies, Remote Sensing is a very strong tool when it comes to address big spatial extensions and time patterns.

Location

Satellite Sensor Landsat-5/TM

Parameter TSS Turbidity

Correlation R2 0.63-74 0.537

Reference

Lake Taihu,
(China) Lake Reelfoot, Tennessee and Kentucky, (USA) Gulf of Finland

Zhou et al.
(2005) Wang et

Landsat-5/TM

TSS

0.522

al.,2006
Koponen t al, 2009

EOS TerraMODIS Landsat-5/TM MODIS-Aqua 1000-m

Turbidity

0.76

Lake Beysehir,
Turkey South Bay of Biscay

Turbidity
TSS Turbidity TSS

0.60
0.67 0.996 0.974

Bilgehan Nas
et al, 2010 Petus et al, 2010

The Ministry of Environment of El Salvador (MARN) supplied a report made by the Autonomous Port Executive Commission (CEPA) with date of August 2005, containing water quality analysis such as concentration of suspended solids (mg/l) and turbidity (NTU) of a campaign realized during dredging activities for the port being developed.

Band Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 m 0.45-0.515 0.525-0.605 0.63-0.69 0.75-0.90 1.55-1.75 10.4-12.5 2.09-2.35 0.52-0.9

Spectral response Blue-Green Green Red Near IR Mid IR Thermal Mid IR Panchromatic Resolution 30 m 30 m 30 m 30 m 30 m 60 m 30 m 15 m

Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper +: Launch Date: April 15, 1999 Status: operational despite Scan Line Corrector (SLC) failure May 31, 2003 Sensors: ETM+ Altitude: 705 km Inclination: 98.2 Orbit: polar, sun-synchronous Equatorial Crossing Time: nominally 10 AM ( 15 min.) local time (descending node) Period of Revolution : 99 minutes; ~14.5 orbits/day Repeat Coverage : 16 days No cost images

Dredging works
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec season 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Dry

Rainy

Dry

Gap filled multispectral images Landsat 7 ETM+ Digital numbers

Band 1 STEP 4 Band 2 Layer Stack Band 3

Radiance multispectral image

STEP 2
Read radiance value 5x5

STEP 3
Linear regression analysis

Total Suspended Solids Model

TSS Model NTU Model

Map of Suspended Solids August 2005

Turbidity Model

Map of Turbidity August 2005

Band 4 Radiance correction EQ 5.2 STEP 1

Georeference of monitoring stations Values of samples in situ

Uni- variate:

band1, band2, band3, band4,

(band4/band3), (band2/ band1), (band1/band3),

(band3/band1), (band4/band1), (band3/band2), (band4/band2), (band4/band3)

Bi-variate

(band1 and band2), (band1 and band3), (band1 and band4), (band2 and band3), (band2 and band4), (band3 and band4)

Multi-variate

(band1, band2, and band3), (band1, band2, and band4), (band2, band3, and band4), (band1, band2, band3, and band4).

Satelite Image August 2nd 2005

In situ measurements TSS and Turbidity August 2nd 2005

For a 90% of confidence:

Linear Regression Analysis

ANOVA test Significance value <0.10

coefficientt significance value <0.10

Choose the higher R value

2

Overall is the model significant ?

No Discard model No

Are the variables significant ?

yes

Final Linear Model

Turbidity linear model (R2=0.73) NTU=-2.223+0.77*band3-1.072*band4

Total Suspended Solids linear model (R2=0.74) TSS =-7.669+1.715*band3-2.408*band4

Ideal situation is having in situ measurements and satellite images same day for every season from 2004 to 2010. Since performing an atmospheric correction was not possible because there is a lack of atmospheric information, we used radiance image. Radiance corrected images were normalized in order to simulate same atmospheric conditions.

Normalized

Band X =

(Band X Mean Band X) * Sdev REF Band X Sdev Band X

+ Mean REF Band X

Where:
Band X : is the radiance values of the band X before normalized; in our particular case, bands 3 and 4.
. Mean Band X : is the mean value of the pixels identified as water in the band X.

Sdev Band X: stands for the standard deviation of the band X Sdev REF Band : is the standard deviation of the reference image, in our case the image of august 2nd 2005 .

Mean REF Band X : is the mean values of the pixel identified as water in the band X of the reference image; august 2nd ,2005

Gap filled multispectral images Landsat 7 ETM+ Digital numbers

STEP 1
Classification land and water

Band 3

Only water radiance Bands 3 and 4

STEP 3

CROP Band 4 Radiance correction EQ 5.2 STEP 2

Radiance Normalization Using August 2005 As reference value EQ 5.6

Maps of Suspended Solids from 2004-2010

TSS Model

Maps of Turbidity from 2004-2010

NTU Model STEP 4

Nomalized radiance Bands 3 and 4

Dry season image From Nov. to Apr.

SAME YEAR MAPS

Rainy season image From May. to Oct.

Dry season-Rainy season = Seasonal Variation

From rainy to dry season Decrease Increase

Dry season image Year 2006

CONSECUTIVE YEARS

Dry season image Year 2007

Dry season 2007-Dry season 2006 = Yearly variation of the dry season

From 2006 to 2007 Decrease Increase

Our results on turbidity model as previous studies is a multivariate combination (Bilgehan Nas et al, 2010) by the use of the bands 3 and 4 of the Landsat 7ETM+ with a correlation coefficient of 0.736, that explains at least the 74% of the behavior of the turbidity . Statistically proven the analysis on the variance (ANOVA) indicates that both models are significant with a confidence level of 90%.

The resultant maps of turbidity and Total Suspended Solids provides a powerful tool to assist the interpretation on the spatial patterns of these two important indicators of pollution. Generally speaking our maps suggest that a major concentration on total suspended solids and turbidity on the Bay of San Bernardo (Honduras and Nicaragua), followed by the Bay of La Union.

These high concentrations on suspended solids and turbidity are most likely associated with anthropogenic activities, such as municipal waste water discharge to the ocean without previous treatment, and industrial activities in the city of la Union, as well as dredging works for the construction of the port observed in August, 2005, and the waste water coming from the shrimp aquaculture activities.

Throughout seasonal variations (from rainy to dry) it can be observed that in the central area of the Bay of San Bernardo and La Union, the turbidity as well as TSS concentrations are higher during the dry seasons. During the rainy season the predominant factor is the inflow of fresh water coming from every river that ends in the Gulf of Fonseca; patterns suggest that the rivers during this season carry solids in suspension from upstream of their path

In addition in the rainy season the gravitational circulation plays a very relevant role, cause carries out the flux of fresh water, less dense upon the oceanic water which has more salinity and thus a higher specific weight, carrying within organic matter from the anthropogenic activity, waste water from the shrimp farms and some other suspended pollutants (PROGOLFO, 2000) and that fact is congruent with the results observed in the present study.

According with our results on change analysis for consecutive years of each season, there is no relation between year to year variations; no factor can be identified to be generating a constant change on Turbidity and TSS on our study area. There is no evidence of a permanent impact on the natural turbidity to the Bay of La Union and for the entire Gulf of Fonseca, stronger predominant factors are seasonal variations and extreme meteorological events, such as an increase on the precipitation average values or tropical storms.

Quantity and distribution of in situ samples should be high enough to have a good correlation and also to let some amount of data for validation process. Most of the previous reviewed studies use more than 40 in situ measurements. We recommend having at least one model for every season, to address seasonal variations. The ideal scenario will be to have always monitoring campaigns at the moment of acquisition of the images, since that is rather impossible and costly, at least having a model for each season in order to use it in long terms observations.

If there is any interest on monitoring the impact of Shrimp related activity on the Bays of the Gulf of Fonseca, this should integrate a monitoring at source of discharge, in the flux of the river, and within the complete Bay, until reaching the central part of the Gulf of Fonseca.
To measure the impact from dredging works activities is recommended a shorter period of time observations, to study day to day variations and fluctuations during high and low tidal levels.

Finally the researcher encourage to do further research in order to have more precise data and results that reveals how anthropogenic activities affect the quality of the water in the Gulf of Fonseca. Every monitoring program corresponding to water quality should be properly geo-referenced and integrated into a geo-database for further uses and help to the promotion of this revolutionary technology the Remote Sensing