Application of Remote Sensing Techniques for the Lineament Extraction in Tunnel Route Selection of the Kani Sib Water Tunnel

Remote sensing is one of the novel methods in the field of Earth sciences and environment studies. Despite well-known methods of producing geological maps which are costly and time-consuming, remote sensing techniques are cheap and fast, and are more capable of space resolution. By detecting and identifying various installations, areas and landscape phenomena, the natural resources are investigated with reservation in time, cost and human power. As remote sensing has a much larger field scope than arial photography, it allows the interpreters to determine the alliance between various geological phenomena. Remotely acquired data, although used extensively in many applications, have not been widely used for lineament extraction in tunnel route selection. In this study the main focus is on the applicability of the remote sensing technique as a tool for predicting geological and rock mass conditions by using the Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) sensor onboard the Landsat 7 in drilling the Kani Sib tunnel for conveyance of water into the Urmia Lake which is located in the south of West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. For this purpose, in this research the best band assignment, the best band combination, filtering and main component analysis (PCA) based on statistical ratio-findings (OFI) are selected and applied on band numbers 1 to 5 and band 7 ETM+ photos with 30 m resolution power. The results show that ETM+ Landsat satellite’s different data processing methods can be applied for geological studies and structure investigations in vast areas or hardly accessible regions.