Waste and Water. This sector involves the monitoring and mitigation of solid wastes and water pollution associated with energy management activities. Solid wastes can include coal mine waste, oil and gas drilling muds, power plant ash, and other exploration, production, and processing wastes. Water pollution issues range 86 For example, Xxxxx-Xxx, X., X. Xxxx, and X. Xxxxxx, Recommendations on the use of satellite remote-sensing data for urban air quality, Journal of Air and Waste Management, Volume 54, Number 11, pp. 1360-1371, November 2004. from thermal pollution associated with power plants to energy resource exploration, production, processing, and transportation water discharges. This sector also encompasses renewable energy issues such as increased erosion and runoff associated with land disturbances for solar or wind power. Potentially Relevant NASA Resources ▪ High-resolution land-use images may help monitor waste and water discharges ▪ Ocean, climate, and weather information may help planning and response to oil spills ▪ Real-time, high-resolution information on surface water body characteristics can help monitor thermal discharges or other pollutant discharges, e.g., from oil production platforms Current Status/Relevant Issues Management of waste and wastewater for the energy sector tends to be on a plant/facility scale, such as slag piles at coal-fired power plants or cooling water discharge into a river. Monitoring and modeling at this fine spatial resolution is not generally optimal for NASA resources. High-resolution land use data, such as managed by USGS, may be a more appropriate resource for waste monitoring. EPA and NASA Stennis conducted a pilot project to monitor thermal effluent from power plants using Landsat with only limited success, particularly because the spatial resolution was coarse enough that the data pixels averaged in parts of the shoreline with the discharge plume.87 The study recommended that higher resolution data (1 meter or less) would provide better monitoring capability. Other studies have used Landsat to monitor thermal plumes at a subpixel level88 and there is an interest in understanding and monitoring the effects of cooling water discharge on water ecosystems. Oil spill tracking and response have been successfully assisted by satellite-based remote sensing data,89 but these activities require finer spatial and temporal resolution than available on most NASA sensors.
