Academic literature on the topic 'Aerial photography – kuwait'

Kuwait City has witnessed rapid urban development, with a clear change in land use in Kuwait City during the last period. In the second half of the twentieth century, Kuwait witnessed an urban development due to the economic boom and the discovery of oil. This development is accompanied by a huge increase in the number of residents and Incoming; Resulting in an increase in economic and urban activities, and one of the most affected areas of Kuwait City. This research aims to study the urban growth of Kuwait City using aerial photographs and high-resolution satellite imagery. The study is based on the first two aerial photographs for the years 1976 with a spatial resolution of 1.5 meters and the second for 1991 with a spatial resolution of 60 cm and two satellite imagery (IKONOS) for 2000 by 1 meter and the second for the satellite (WorldView-2) for 2011 at 50 cm. spatial resolution. The results showed that there is significant changes in the land use of Kuwait City during the period from 1976 to 2011, where the area of residential use decreased for other uses by 9.4%, while the area of commercial use increased slightly by 0.2%. Governmental use increased by 5.1%. Green areas witnessed an increase of 7.3%. While parking increased by 4.7%. The increase in roads was about 2.8%. Most of the land in the city is unused, and it is an area of space. There has been a change in the coast of the city as a result of landfill work. The area of landfill to city coast reached 0.55 km². The study recommended the use of land space in the future urban expansion rather than re-fills the coast and reconsiders some uses and work to exploit them to suit the city center.

The aim of this study was to investigate the concept of Carrying Capacity (CC) as a tool for beach management in Kuwait through focusing on two public beaches (Al-Shuwaikh and Green Island beaches). A geodatabase has been built up and GIS maps were prepared for each single beach that included the land use map and density distribution of visitors produced by aerial photography (year 2004) and ground survey. Data on the environmental quality of the coastal water at these beaches as well as information on the perception of visitors through visitor’s interviews were collected and analyzed. The CC maps produced for both beaches revealed that visitors› distribution was not uniform across the beaches. High density zones were concentrated at the intertidal areas, the sports and children playgrounds and the greenery areas on the beaches and represented the highest pressure of use in comparison to the total area of the studied beaches. Moreover, results of visitor’s perception revealed the importance given by the beach users to both the occupancy area and the distance between each group of people when visiting the beach. Such factors are important when determining the CC of the beach and should be considered, in order to come up with a realistic CC and better management of these beaches. Comparison between the two studied beaches revealed some differences as related to their carrying capacity. It has been shown that the percentage of visitors to Al-Shuwaikh beach was greater than the Green Island beach and the visitors› distribution was different too. This was related to a number of reasons including the availability of more services and leisure activities on this beach and the relatively easier access to the sea through intertidal areas in addition to the proximity and convenience of Al-Shuwaikh beach to the residential area located to the north of Kuwait city.

Earth consists of hard rock layers where water is restricted to secondary permeability, and thus to fractures and the weather zones. Satellite images, aerial photographs and digital elevation models will give lineament information. Recent advances in digital image processing allow such lineament extraction to be accomplished in semi-automatic to fully automatic approaches. Precise delineation and mapping of geological structural lineaments is very much needed in Northern Kuwait in view of their close spatial association with subsurface tectonic fractures in oil fields at deep levels and groundwater fields (aquifers) at shallow depths. As such, high spatial resolution remote sensing multispectral image data (Landsat 8 ETM+ satellite) will be used delineate and map the lineaments. Lineaments are linear features which provide information about the underlying geological structure. Their analysis are widely considered in the location or sitting of suitable groundwater exploration sites since the water will tend to flow along the fracture zones. The major objective was to extract the lineaments in Northern Kuwait, with a view of using the analysis for groundwater exploration in the future to mitigate the requirement of groundwater in the area. The analysis was carried out using Band 5, 6 and 7 of Landsat 8 (OLI), which was processed using the edge enhancement filters available to extract the lineaments in the study area. These were then verified using manually digitized lineaments from a geological map partly covering the region and false color composites of the study area. The results showed that the semi-automatic extraction of lineaments can yield tangible results using optical imagery. However, the lineaments still require verification through comparison with known lineaments. Filters which are Sobel, Laplacian and Directional filtering of Band 5, 6 and 7 of Landsat 8 proved to be useful in visual identification and verification of lineaments.

Mangrove forests in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are facing multiple threats from natural and anthropogenic-driven land use change stressors, contributing to altered ecosystem conditions. Remote sensing tools can be used to monitor mangroves, measure mangrove forest-and-tree-level attributes and vegetation indices at different spatial and temporal scales that allow a detailed and comprehensive understanding of these important ecosystems. Using a systematic literature approach, we reviewed 58 remote sensing-based mangrove assessment articles published from 2010 through 2022. The main objectives of the study were to examine the extent of mangrove distribution and cover, and the remotely sensed data sources used to assess mangrove forest/tree attributes. The key importance of and threats to mangroves that were specific to the region were also examined. Mangrove distribution and cover were mainly estimated from satellite images (75.2%), using NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) derived from Landsat (73.3%), IKONOS (15%), Sentinel (11.7%), WorldView (10%), QuickBird (8.3%), SPOT-5 (6.7%), MODIS (5%) and others (5%) such as PlanetScope. Remotely sensed data from aerial photographs/images (6.7%), LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) (5%) and UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)/Drones (3.3%) were the least used. Mangrove cover decreased in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait between 1996 and 2020. However, mangrove cover increased appreciably in Qatar and remained relatively stable for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over the same period, which was attributed to government conservation initiatives toward expanding mangrove afforestation and restoration through direct seeding and seedling planting. The reported country-level mangrove distribution and cover change results varied between studies due to the lack of a standardized methodology, differences in satellite imagery resolution and classification approaches used. There is a need for UAV-LiDAR ground truthing to validate country-and-local-level satellite data. Urban development-driven coastal land reclamation and pollution, climate change-driven temperature and sea level rise, drought and hypersalinity from extreme evaporation are serious threats to mangrove ecosystems. Thus, we encourage the prioritization of mangrove conservation and restoration schemes to support the achievement of related UN Sustainable Development Goals (13 climate action, 14 life below water, and 15 life on land) in the GCC countries.