Satellite water resource
monitoring
Accurate monitoring of available water sources, in a water-scarce
environment like South Africa, is key to successful
water resource management.
By Mark Thompson
W
ater is a critical and scarce resource in
southern Africa, and is likely to become
even more so as the regional impacts of
global climate change become more evident. Being
able to accurately and repeatedly monitor available
water resources across the entire landscape is a
key information requirement for successful water
resource management.
In support of this, GeoTerraImage will shortly
be launching a web-based service that will provide
water resource managers with fine-detail,
high-accuracy information on the current
status of all surface water features
across South Africa, on a regular,
monthly basis.
Each month the service will
provide spatially quantitative
information on the area of surface
water per catchment, down to
Quaternary catchment level. The
information is generated from high-
resolution satellite imagery using
fully automated data modelling
techniques, and is independent of
any field data input requirements.
Monthly surface water area
information will be reported in
both tabular (i.e. spreadsheet)
and map-visualised formats,
with the latter being accessible
as GIS-compatible data
layer downloads.
Cloud-based satellite image
data archives, combined
with big data processing
capabilities, are used to
generate spatially detailed
information on the extent
of all surface water
features across the South
African landscape, on a
monthly basis.
The GeoTerraImage
water identification
algorithms have
been developed
using in excess
of 100 000 sample
points, distributed
across South
Africa, that
represent a wide
range of seasonal
and regional
water and non-
water reference
characteristics.
Mark Thompson, product director
for the Land Cover products.
14
Water Sewage & Effluent November/December 2017