Mapping Satellite Inherent Optical Properties Index in Coastal Waters of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico)

Jesús A. Aguilar-Maldonado, Eduardo Santamaría-Del-Ángel, Adriana González-Silvera, Omar D. Cervantes-Rosas and María-Teresa Sebastiá-Frasquet
Additional contact information
Jesús A. Aguilar-Maldonado: Facultad de Ciencias Marinas, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Ensenada 22860, Mexico
Eduardo Santamaría-Del-Ángel: Facultad de Ciencias Marinas, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Ensenada 22860, Mexico
Adriana González-Silvera: Facultad de Ciencias Marinas, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Ensenada 22860, Mexico
Omar D. Cervantes-Rosas: Facultad de Ciencias Marinas, Universidad de Colima, Manzanillo 28868, Mexico
María-Teresa Sebastiá-Frasquet: Institut d’Investigació per a la Gestió Integrada de Zones Costaneres, Universitat Politècnica de València, Grau de Gandia 46730, Spain

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 6, 1-20

Abstract: The Yucatán Peninsula hosts worldwide-known tourism destinations that concentrate most of the Mexico tourism activity. In this region, tourism has exponentially increased over the last years, including wildlife oriented tourism. Rapid tourism development, involving the consequent construction of hotels and tourist commodities, is associated with domestic sewage discharges from septic tanks. In this karstic environment, submarine groundwater discharges are very important and highly vulnerable to anthropogenic pollution. Nutrient loadings are linked to harmful algal blooms, which are an issue of concern to local and federal authorities due to their recurrence and socioeconomic and human health costs. In this study, we used satellite products from MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) to calculate and map the satellite Inherent Optical Properties (IOP) Index. We worked with different scenarios considering both holiday and hydrological seasons. Our results showed that the satellite IOP Index allows one to build baseline information in a sustainable mid-term or long-term basis which is key for ecosystem-based management.

Keywords: eutrophication; satellite images; phytoplankton blooms; Gulf of Mexico; Caribbean Sea; tourism; MODIS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/6/1894/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/6/1894/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:6:p:1894-:d:150913

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().