Karst water resources detection through airborne thermal data: MIVIS and TASI-600 imagery

The demand from water resources management authorities has progressively increased in the last decade given the direct impacts by human activities, which may cause an irreversible damage to the local natural water balance in coastal and transition regions. The needs of useful tools for monitoring, understanding and managing the water resource are an important responsibility to local authorities for its sustainable use. Moreover, carbonate aquifers constitute a very important thermal water resource outside of volcanic areas, although there is no detailed and reliable global assessment of thermal water resources. An efficient evaluation and mapping of these resources could provide a valuable supply for their management. Within this context the main aim of this research is to define a processing methodology to assess the suitability of the high resolution thermal airborne sensing for improving the water resource management by correctly identifying and monitoring sea surface thermal anomalies in coastal areas due to karstic and thermal water resources.