There is a strong need to intelligently harness the water resources for crops irrigation and increase the food supply needed by an expanding world population. However, many irrigation canals are losing water by seepage resulting not only in reduced water for crops irrigation but also water logging and salinity issues near the canals. The various available conventional techniques of finding seepage sites are time consuming, labor intensive besides being not very accurate. There is an urgent need to improve our water management skills by seeking an alternative means that can successfully do the same job with reasonable accuracy in less time while minimizing cost. To overcome this difficulty, remote sensing techniques can be successfully utilized to quickly analyze high resolution airborne and spaceborne images for seepage detection. The innovative remote sensing techniques provided in this book will greatly help water resource professionals and consultants in locating seepage sites along irrigation canals and routinely analyze the condition of irrigation canals in near real time scenario; inspect the strength of canal banks for breaching problems and any unlawful encroachment.

Muhammad Arshad, PhD_Remote Sensing: Assistant Professor at King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia. The author has key interest in studying environmental issues by using high resolution satellite images. In this book the author attempts to assist the water resource managers in solving canal seepage issues by utilizing remote sensing techniques.