Application of Remote Sensing Techniques for Monitoring the Thermal Pollution of Cooling-Water Discharge from Nuclear Power Plant

Abstract

This article introduces a practical method to investigate thermal pollution in coastal water from satellite data. The intensity and distribution areas of thermal pollution by the heated effluent discharge from the nuclear power plant on Daya Bay, southern China were investigated by using Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) thermal band data from 1994 to 2001. A local algorithm was developed, based on sea-truth data of water surface temperature measured when the satellite passed over the study area. The local algorithm was then applied to estimate water temperature from TM data. It shows that the remote sensing technique provides an effective means to quantitatively monitor the intensity of thermal pollution and to retrieve a very detailed distribution pattern of thermal pollution in coastal waters. The remotely-sensed results of the thermal pollution can be used for environmental management of coastal waters.

Keywords:

• Thermal pollution
• Remote sensing
• Landsat-TM
• Coastal water
• Nuclear power plant

Acknowledgments

This WORK has been supported by Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation, Group, and by the project 2KB06701S and A200099F01 from Guangdong Province, the project of KZCX2-202 from Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the project S9610 from the Daya Bay Observation Station for Ecological Net, under CAS.

The authors are grateful to Professor K. Carder at University of Southern Florida for his remark on the manuscript.