Publications

Bonansea, M; Ferrero, S; Ferral, A; Ledesma, M; German, A; Carreno, J; Rodriguez, C; Pinotti, L (2020). Assessing water surface temperature from Landsat imagery and its relationship with a nuclear power plant. HYDROLOGICAL SCIENCES JOURNAL-JOURNAL DES SCIENCES HYDROLOGIQUES.

Abstract
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 6-year Landsat-derived WST dataset, which includes 3 years of the power plant being in operation (2013-2015) and 3 years in which the power plant was not functioning (2016-2018), the effect of the thermal pollution was assessed. The results show that, although 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. This was the principal heat flux following a dissipation line that was wide near the cooling channel and expanding towards the rest of the reservoir.

DOI:
10.1080/02626667.2020.1845342

ISSN:
0262-6667