Discipline: Ecology Environmental and Earth Sciences
Subcategory: Pollution/Toxic Substances/Waste
Adesope Akinsanya - Texas Southern University
Co-Author(s): Maruthi Bhaskar, Texas Southern University
The water quality in Galveston bay is essential to maintain its species diversity and other commercial benefits its post to the gulf. The estuarine is known to be the seventh largest in the United States and made up of about four counties, which are Brazoria, Chambers, Harris and the Galveston bay county. The goal of this research is to map and monitor the distribution of various forms of Nitrogen and Phosphorus along with the Land cover and Land use changes. The specific objectives are (1) To download and analyze the physical and chemical characteristic trends of the Galveston Bay, (2) To map, model and predict the spatial distribution of the chemical characteristics of the water quality in the bay using the Geographical Information System (GIS), and (3) Monitor the land use and land cover changes along the bay using satellite image analysis. The historical water quality data that is collected by different monitoring stations over the last four decades along the Galveston Bay and Texas Gulf Coast were downloaded and analyzed for the changes in the various physical and chemical characteristics. The water quality parameters that are analyzed include Chlorophyll, Ammonia Nitrogen, Total Suspended Solid (TSS), Total Nitrogen and Total Phosphorus. The water sampling locations along with their Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates were imported into GIS to create spatial representations of the field observations and for further data analysis, to map, model and predict the spatial distribution of the chemical concentrations in the water. The Landsat imagery corresponding to the last three decades were downloaded and analyzed to monitor the land use and landcover changes using the ERDAS ER Mapper software. Our results showed high Ammonia Nitrogen and Chlorophyll concentrations in the Trinity Bay compared to others in the temporal trend graph with Total Phosphorus, Nitrate Nitrite concentration highest in the Galveston bay and TSS highest relative to others in the East bay. Our results also show that Nitrate and Phosphorus concentrations are higher in the Upper and Lower Galveston bay compared to other regions. Our analytical results showed that no significant metal concentrations in the waters of Galveston Bay. Our satellite image analysis showed that the urban area increased along the Galveston bay resulting in reduction of wetlands. This research help shows the spatial distribution of Nitrogen and Phosphorus and would be essential to environmental agencies that enact laws on the control of nutrient pollution from both point and non-point sources.
Not SubmittedFunder Acknowledgement(s): This research was primarily supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Texas Southern University (TSU) under the award numbers HRD-1400962and HRD-1622993.
Faculty Advisor: Maruthi Sridhar Balaji Bhaskar, bhaskarm@tsu.edu
Role: The analysis of Historical trend with Geographical Information System, Remote Sensing Analysis with the ER mapper.