Remote sensing as a tool to identify drivers and their impacts on water quality in data-scarce areas

The increase of human interventions and developments is modifying the land use/land cover(LULC) of the global landscape, thus affecting the water quality of rivers and lakes severely. Lake Titicaca and Lake Nicaragua are the largest lakes in Latin America. Despite Bolivia and Nicaragua being countries with a vast richness of natural resources, they face unsustainable practices ranging from over-exploitation of resources to drastic LULC changes that have created environmental problems that consequently affect human well-being and health. Additionally, climate change (CC) is exacerbating these problems and causing new ones. Therefore, it is also necessary to consider the effects that it will have on water quality, either by changes in temperature or by changes in precipitation (floods or droughts) that affect river flows and sediment transport. Environmental sustainability means securing adequate management of natural resources in all human productive and livelihood activities. Monitoring and assessing the quality of surface waters are fundamental for managing and ensuring the improvement of its state. A good understanding of the LULC change and CC dynamics is crucial to develop efficient strategy assessment, pollution management, and land use planning for the promotion of sustainable development. For these case studies, the integrated use of remote sensing products; especially considering the scarcity of data, enables a comprehensive understanding of the cause-effect relations in the water system, which assists policymakers in developing management plans for a variety of natural resource management applications.