INTRODUCTION - Integrating GIS, Remote Sensing, and Mathematical Modelling for Surface Water Quality Management - page 11

1.9. THESIS OUTLINE
This thesis consists of nine chapters. A brief overview of the content of the following chapters is
presented here.
Chapter 2 presents an overview of water quality management in connected catchment-shallow lake
systems. A description of the common features and characteristics of connected catchment-shallow
lake systems is given including the physical characteristics of water bodies, land and water use. This is
followed by a description of the different pollution sources and environmental risks facing these
systems. The chapter ends by highlighting the trends and difficulties facing efficient water quality
management in these connected systems, by exposing the different management issues and by
identifying the relevant tools.
Chapter 3 presents a description of the existing tools for surface water quality management and
explains the importance of their integration. The application of the relevant tools including remote
sensing, GIS and mathematical modelling are discussed. The integration of tools is explored with
reference to the applications of management information systems and their different levels of users.
The integration of the different tools into decision support systems for water quality management is
highlighted at the end of the chapter.
Chapter 4 introduces the framework of the proposed water quality management information system
(WQMIS), it shows the links between the different components of this framework; the geo-database,
the hierarchy of hydrodynamic and water quality models and integrated modelling and remote sensing
techniques. It guides the reader to get a general background on the selected modelling tools and
procedures and how are these models integrated with remote sensing techniques for better
understanding of the hydrodynamics and water quality processes of surface water within the study
area.
Chapter 5 introduces the study area and its characteristics as an irrigated watershed in the Nile Delta
region. It is considered an important chapter to the rest of the thesis as it explains the components of
the irrigated watershed, the main water quality problems within the catchment and lake system. It
details all the categories of data collected and needed to build the WQMIS and the different data
acquisition methods including field work. The chapter gives a detailed overview of preliminary water
quality analysis based on collected datasets.
Chapter 6 deals with the water balance and pollutants loads estimates within the lake water system.
The chapter gives an estimate of the lake water budget based on measured discharges at the different
lake boundaries (drains outlets and exit channel to the sea). It includes a summary on the types of
fertilizers used in agriculture being the main sources of nutrients loadings into the lake. The last part of
this chapter focuses on the analysis of nutrients loads inputs to the lake based on measured historical
data in comparison with literature published values.
Chapter 7 is a key important chapter in the research study since it focuses on the main components of
the WQMIS which is the set of hierarchical 1D-2D hydrodynamic, water quality and eutrophiocation
models. The chapter explains the development procedures of different models and it highlights the
relation between these models and the uses of different modelling component. It ends by the first level
of calibration of important water quality indicators (TSM and CHL-a) as a first step towards
introducing the importance of Remote Sensing techniques in the models calibration. This chapter is
considered an important contribution to integrating different mathematiclas modelling tools for better
understanding of complex water systems.
Chapter 8 is the bridging chapter between mathematical modelling and remote sensing. It focuses on
the different methodologies and remote sensing techniques used for extracting water quality
parameters from satellite images data, and how this driven data is used to complement the lack of
measurements for water quality models calibration. The chapter is considered an added contribution to