Remote‐Sensing Application to Well Monitoring

Abstract

The artesian wells flowing uncontrolled in many parts of Florida have caused a serious saline‐contamination problem. Locating these wells by ground search is made difficult by the urbanized or reforested condition of formerly agricultural land. Both ground‐based color infrared (GCIR) and aerial color infrared (ACIR) photographs were taken for analysis of the spectral reflectance of land‐surface features that can provide information for detection of flowing wells. Both GCIR and ACIR showed similar patterns of spectral reflectance for the same component class of land‐surface features. Well‐site soil had a higher spectral reflectance than soil not associated with a well. Well water had higher spectral reflectance than natural pond and ditch water. The spectral reflectance patterns of vegetation types included in this study all have two peak‐intensity values. The vegetation types had differences in spectral reflectance magnitude except for leather fern and cattail (similar to each other) and St. Augustine grass and cucumber (also similar to each other). The combination of green and red channels of spectral reflectance video‐digitized from ACIR photography appears to be useful for classifying land‐cover types and distinguishing flowing wells.