Environmental changes in Bahrain and other West Asian countries are being documented with a series of before and after satellite images.

The Atlas of Environmental Change for West Asia aims to provide scientific evidence of rapid environmental changes taking place in many areas around West Asia.

It aims to raise awareness among the general public and policy-makers, while bringing local level changes to the attention of global audiences.

The project is sponsored by United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), Abu Dhabi Environment Agency and Qatar Environment Ministry.

It will highlight environmental case studies, supported by narratives, images, ground photographs and environmental maps.

'This is an atlas that will be made from light imagery, going back 20 or 30 more years ago until today,' said Unep West Asia early warning and assessment division regional co-ordinator Dr Adel Abdel Kader, who is also leading the Atlas project.

'It's a very good visual presentation of environment issues. We have already done some background work and identified key sites, but now we will discuss what sites from different countries are the most appropriate to look for environment change.'

Dr Abdel Kader said Unep had already produced a global atlas and one for Africa, but this was the first of its kind in the region to completely focus on countries in West Asia.

He said a team would collect the oldest to the most recent images from the data available and publish them in an atlas, which is expected to be completed by the end of next year.

Disaster

It will look at six thematic areas: water resources, land resources, urban development, coastal and marine environment, pollution and extreme events and environment disasters.

Dr Kader expects people in Bahrain to find the Atlas of interest, particularly with regard to urbanisation, coastal development and desertification.

'The region is really unique - we don't have too many clouds or vegetation blocking the skies, so the images will be much clearer,' explained Dr Abdel Kader.

He said the Atlas would be printed with a storyboard, which will include the environment issues that are being discussed and supporting photographs from the field.

'Every image there will be a small story line to discuss what is happening in that area,' said Dr Kader.-TradeArabia News Service