The oldest-known satellite image of Bahrain can now be viewed and compared with the modern-day look of the country, thanks to the efforts of a dedicated archivist and map enthusiast.
The black-and-white photo, taken in 1965 by US spy satellites, shows the green-covered landscape of northern Bahrain Island, Muharraq, Sitra, Saleh, Um Al Naasan and other isles in the archipelago.
The image can be found on MapBH, a website that catalogues and documents hundreds of historical maps of Bahrain, ranging from 1154 to a projected vision of 2030, both created locally and by other countries.
On the site, the user can either superimpose, or make a side-to-side comparison, of an old map or satellite photograph with an up-to-date Google Maps map.
A map found by Mr Ali at a library which was scanned and uploaded on his site
Created from scratch by Bahraini software developer Ahmed Ali, the project aims to track changes in Bahrain’s terrain and shoreline, and to remind new generations of how the country looked like before reclamation.
More than 10 satellite photographs - taken by US reconnaissance airplanes between 1965 and 1982 - are now available to view, compare and download.
MapBH’s founder says that the 1965 image likely to be the oldest photograph of Bahrain taken from space.
“I found the image on the US Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Explorer site, where these declassified documents are publicly available,” Mr Ali told the GDN. “From the declassified data, it seems like this is the earliest image that has a high resolution and is unobstructed by cloud cover. I’m still searching through the data for more images of Bahrain.”
The incredible image offers a nearly unrecognisable view of the country, when Bahrain still had a virgin shoreline and was covered in farmland and palm tree fields, before major reclamation and development.
“There are so many interesting and significant details in these maps, it really is worth everyone exploring,” Mr Ali said. “While landmarks in the bigger cities are easier to find, very little remains in the villages along the coasts.
“The farmland is gone, the coast is buried, the visible water springs have disappeared and the burial mounds, where Hamad Town once stood, are also gone.”
He noted that it was difficult to lay the 1965 image on a modern-day map, due to the drastic changes that took place between then and now.
“It was much harder than usual to geo-reference landmarks to align this image with modern satellite imagery, and one of the mainstays I could still lean on was roads.
“Dirt roads - the same roads that have been travelled on for centuries - are the same asphalt roads we use today.”
Since the photos are captured on film without geographic data attached, they can drift and become inconsistent from photo to photo, or the film itself may be distorted or warped.
So, Mr Ali developed a computer script to automatically align and warp historic satellite images accurately, so they could be overlaid on a modern map.
The satellite images released on the MapBH site were taken as part of a top-secret US spy programme, originally used to gather cartographic information and reconnaissance for US intelligence agencies.
Since the images could be of historical value for research, and were no longer critical to national security, the collection was released to the public over the years.
The US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) spy satellites programme began in 1959, but the missions didn’t start successfully capturing images until 1964, Mr Ali said.
“They were actually declassified in 2002, but the scans started becoming publicly available online in 2018,” he said. “Out of one million declassified frames, only a small fraction has been digitised.
“I’ve been cataloguing relevant frames on the site, and reprojecting them to Web Mercator - the standard projection used for almost all online mapping applications - as capacity allows.”
Along with these images of Bahrain, tens of thousands of photographs of Earth’s surface were taken with a telescopic camera on Keyhole (KH) satellite systems, specifically KH-7 and KH-9, according to Mr Ali.
The photographs were snapped, then the exposed film would be sent to Earth through recovery capsules, some retrieved by aircraft, and others parachuted to the ground.
He explained that the exposed film was developed, and the images were analysed for a range of military applications.
The KH-7 surveillance system, operational from 1963 to 1967, took 18,000 black-and-white images and 230 colour images from the 38 missions flown during the programme.
The KH-9 programme, operational from 1973 to 1980, was designed to support mapping requirements and exact positioning of geographical points for the US military. Approximately 29,000 images were acquired from 12 missions.
The images could be accessed on the USGS Earth Explorer, one of the world’s largest archives of satellite imagery and geospatial datasets. The original film sources are maintained by the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Mr Ali, who is based in the US, started MapBH in January 2021 and told the GDN about the future of the project and new initiatives he aims to launch as part of it.
“I’ve released hundreds of maps, introduced a map catalogue, and the project is nearing completion on its explicit aim of covering the entire breadth of modern historic maps of Bahrain,” he stated.
“The project is continuously cited across academic research, exhibitions, literature, even court cases, and has dozens of daily users across several domains.”
The Bahraini environment lover began MapBH with only six maps, but has since travelled to multiple US states and countries to scan maps in library collections, and also received images from volunteers.
By building on his education in computer science and applied maths, he learned the principles of cartography and geographic information systems (GIS) entirely on his own.
He had his start in GIS when, in 2016, he created a viral Internet sensation: a map that helped Pokémon Go players spot Pokémon regardless of their current location.
He has also created a tutorial for those who want to start a similar project, titled “How to geo-reference a historical map.”
Now, he is taking the MapBH forward by introducing a crowd-sourced narrative element. “People now use the maps to tell their own stories in casual conversation, which was the original aim of the project,” he said.
“I will soon be introducing a people’s MapBH, where people can collectively tag the map with their own stories, images and history.”
More historic satellite images will be released on the website in the near future.
The maps, catalogues and articles can be found on www.mapbh.org/en
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
&uuid=(email))