Remote sensing measurements and GIS application for evaluation of air pollution in an industrial area in Limassol, Cyprus

Abstract

The air pollution in Cyprus is started to be one of the major environmental issues that affects the public health. The rapid economic growth of Cyprus leads to the creation of new industrial zones. The monitoring of air pollution in such industrial sites is the most important parameter that must be monitored taken into account by the governmental authorities. Indeed, the basic institutional and administrative structures for an effective control of industrial pollution in Cyprus have been already established, within this context most of the industrial plants have been licensed and are regularly inspected under the Atmospheric Pollution Control Law. Measuring stations, to be scarcely distributed around in the whole island does not provide a synoptic coverage of all the areas. However, the use of satellite remote sensing tools can provide such coverage using satellite imagery. The authors present an application of their new method for monitoring air pollution in industrial areas based on the use of aerosol optical thickness detected from the satellite images. A GIS system has been developed for the mapping the spatial and temporal variations of air pollution data. Comparison between the aerosol optical thickness values and the extrapolated visibility data that have been measured during the satellite overpass shows high correlation values R-square= 0.8 (regression analysis model) for the industrial area. Landsat TM and Quickbird satellite images of Limassol District area have been used in this pilot study. It has been found that the determined values of the aerosol optical thickness for the industrial area are higher than those found from the urban/sub-urban area …