Modeling the Environment with Remote Sensing and GIS: Applied Case Studies from Diverse Locations of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Abstract

Maintaining a healthy and sustainable environment is of paramount importance for human well-being and economic activity. Hence, environment protection, requiring continuous and reliable monitoring, has become a major mandate at various levels of government. There is a direct link between the availability of information about environmentally endangered areas and sound decision-making for effective and sustainable management. While remote sensing allows acquiring relevant information on a regular and repetitive basis even in areas where accessibility is limited, geographic information systems (GIS) provide unique tools for storing, processing, and integrating this information with other sources enabling the development of spatial models that help identify and characterize environmentally endangered areas. In this chapter, we will discuss how GIS-based modeling is applied for solving diverse environmental problems using case studies from United Arab Emirates.