Satellite Images Processing for Monitoring Lake Surface Area

Water security is a critical issue that occupies a significant place in scientific research due to its impact on water resource management.Monitoring the lake surface area is essential for understanding environmental transformations and planning sustainable water management.Image processing tools facilitate the separation of water bodies from the rest of the image, enhancing the accuracy of lake surface area estimation in complex environments.This study employs satellite imagery and advanced image processing algorithms to examine the changes in the surface area of Habbaniyah and Tharthar lakes in Iraq.For this purpose, satellite images from 2000 to 2024 were analysed.Water pixels were identified using threshold-based binarisation and segmentation techniques implemented in Mathematica to accurately calculate the lake surface area.The accuracy of the proposed methodology was evaluated using three statistical performance metrics: R2, RMSE, and MAPE.The results revealed a 7.1% reduction in surface area for Habbaniyah Lake and a 1.15% reduction for Tharthar Lake in 2024.The method achieved an accuracy of 0.954.These findings support the development of automated monitoring and early warning systems to investigate changes in the area of freshwater bodies.Further research is recommended to analyse flow rates, evaporation, and rainfall patterns.