Speaker
Description
Environmental pollution poses significant risks to both ecosystem health and human well-being, particularly in sensitive or vulnerable areas where exposure to contaminants can impact local populations and biodiversity. Aquatic ecosystems, especially enclosed or volcanic lakes, are highly susceptible to anthropogenic pressures such as illegal wastewater discharges, which can lead to severe and often irreversible environmental degradation if not promptly detected and mitigated.
Our research group has developed an innovative approach to environmental monitoring that integrates on-site surveys with proximal and remote sensing based technologies. This research, grounded in principles of environmental awareness, aims to advance environmental monitoring and impact assessment frameworks through the integration of advanced earth observation technologies, combining remote sensing, proximal sensing, and in situ data collection methodologies. Proximal sensing techniques provide detailed, high-resolution information that is essential for understanding localized environmental processes and identifying subtle spatial variations linked to pollution sources. While remote sensing enables synoptic-scale monitoring, offering extensive spatial coverage and repeated temporal observations, which are particularly valuable for detecting large-scale anomalies and monitoring areas that are difficult, hazardous, or inaccessible through traditional field-based approaches. In situ measurements remain a critical component of the monitoring framework, serving as a reference for calibration, validation, and interpretation of remotely and proximally sensed data. The synergistic integration of these complementary approaches facilitates the acquisition of multi-scale and multi-temporal environmental data, thereby enhancing the capacity to observe, detect, and predict environmental changes with greater accuracy and reliability.
The proposed framework is demonstrated through a real-world case study focused on the detection of an illegal wastewater discharge into Avernus Lake, a sensitive volcanic lake in the Campania region of Italy with a history of eutrophication and anthropogenic pressure. The methodology was structured as a hierarchical top-down workflow, integrating multi-scale and multi-platform observations. Initially, satellite remote sensing was employed for synoptic monitoring to identify broad-scale anomalies. This was followed by targeted, high resolution UAV surveys equipped with radiometric thermal camera, enabling high-resolution data acquisition over the area of interest to characterize potential discharge signatures. Finally, in situ water sampling and chemical analysis were conducted to validate the remote and proximal sensing data.
Overall, this research highlights the effectiveness of interdisciplinary and multi-scale approaches in strengthening environmental monitoring strategies and supporting informed decision-making for the protection and sustainable management of vulnerable aquatic ecosystems and promoting better stewardship of our planet's resources.
