Researchers need to delineate the shoreline for different applications with no access to costly resources such as topographic maps and high-resolution satellite images. With the increase of open source data, this study aims to present a methodology to use open source data in the best possible way to map the shoreline. Several methods have been tested using open source remote sensing data (Landsat and Aster), such as supervised classification, unsupervised classification, manual mapping, and by applying some spectral indices, among others. The accuracy of the extracted shoreline data was verified using high-resolution open database images (such as Google Earth basemap). The results showed that the manually mapped shoreline through applying spectral index (green- near infrared/green+ near infrared) is the most accurate, although it remains important to modify it using high-resolution images of open databases. Open-source data showed acceptable accuracy in mapping the shoreline.

Research have been conducted in many countries around the world to assess air quality during COVID-19 pandemic, especially during lockdown period, some of these studies found an increase or decrease in some pollutants. This paper investigates the impact of COVID-19 on seven air pollutants (i.e., PM_2.5, PM₁₀, NO₂, O₃, SO₂, H₂S, CO) from the period January 2020 to December 2020 in the State of Kuwait. Kuwait is a desert country located in the north-eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, and the northeast of the Arabian Gulf (Persian as it is sometimes called). Several analytical methods were conducted, such as spatial analysis (spatial interpolation) to study the distribution of the studied variables. The data was also statistically analysed (time series analysis - Kernel density) to study the temporal changes. The analysis also included applying air quality index to the data. We found that concentrations for the pollutants decreased during the pandemic due to the decrease of anthropogenic sources including such as traffic and petroleum activities, but the concentration for PM_2.5 increased, mostly because of the transported dust coming with the northwest winds prevailing in Kuwait from the Arabian deserts and Iraq.