Automatic extraction of rivers from satellite images using image processing techniques

River water is an essential natural resource that is a vital component affecting the global carbon cycle and climate change Thus, river water is an essential component of the environment, which has a vital role in the survival of humans, plants, animals, as well as economic development. Generally, river water is utilized for multiple purposes such as agriculture, drinking, hydropower projects, etc. Accordingly, it is important to take care of the rivers and identify the areas of water pollution in the river as well. However, extracting rivers from satellite imagery remains a difficult problem because rivers have complex shapes with diverse branches and directions Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images have been used growingly for water monitoring, due to their ability to register images independently of weather conditions [3]. Many algorithms for extracting water using SAR images rely on optimum thresholding techniques [46].