Mapping Hydrocarbon Pollution on Land Surface using Thermal Remote Sensing in South Kuwait

"Quantitative estimation of Land Surface Temperature (LST) using remote sensing is a very precise measurement. It is based on three critical factors i.e. emissivity of the material, transmittance and mean atmospheric temperature. Latter two of the three parameters are available from the metrological datasets (radiosone and regular metrological recordings). The first parameter, i.e., emissivity is to be established for different materials in the study area to establish a reference library for thermodynamically different material. The LST pattern in the oil fields will be used for correlation with hydrocarbon-polluted surfaces. Preliminary investigations indicated a good correlation between spatial patterns of LST and hydrocarbon pollution in Burgan Oil field area. The observation will be very significant to use the thermal remote sensing band to differentiate thermodynamically different materials, which in the study area are hydrocarbon polluted surfaces, soil moisture, oil installations and vegetation. The project envisages relating the total petroleum hydrocarbon to LST patterns which, in turn, will depend on emissivity of the material.
LST will help to differentiate thermodynamically inconsistent surfaces within a physically identical monotonous desert surface. This will be a new method for mapping obscure hydrocarbon polluted surfaces, much of which are now believed to be cleared. The LST estimation will be useful tool for studying the micro-climatic variation in the region. Relationship between landuse-landcover (LULC) changes and LST will be studied for better understanding of local climate phenomena and Urban Heat Island effect, if any. The outcome of this project can be considerably important for Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) and Environment Protection Agency (EPA) which are monitoring and carrying out remediation of these surfaces. "