Assessing water surface temperature from Landsat imagery and its relationship with a nuclear power plant

BONANSEA, MATIAS; FERRERO, SUSANA; FERRAL, ANABELLA; LEDESMA, MARÍA MICAELA; GERMAN, ALBA; CARREÑO, JOEL; RODRIGUEZ, CLAUDIA; PINOTTI, LUCIO

HYDROLOGICAL SCIENCES JOURNAL-JOURNAL DES SCIENCES HYDROLOGIQUES

IAHS PRESS

Lugar: Wallingford; Año: 2021 vol. 66 p. 50 - 58

0262-6667

Water temperature is fundamental to understand the functioning of aquatic systems. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of warm water discharge from a nuclear power plant on the water surface temperature (WST) of a reservoir. Using a six-year Landsat derived-WST dataset, which includes three years of the power plant being in operation (2013-2015) and three years in which the power plant was not functioning (2016-2018), the effect of the thermal pollution was assessed. Results showed that though the warm water discharge did not reveal a statistically significant increase on the mean WST of the reservoir (p > 0.05), multi-temporal Landsat imagery revealed that the power plant generated a local thermal impact which was the principal heat flux following a dissipation line that was wide near the cooling channel and expanding towards the rest of the reservoir.