WaterS

Strategic partnership for improved basin-scale Water quality parameter retrieval from optical signatures

WaterS focuses on creating strategic and dynamic partnerships for long-term cooperation between three excellent research groups with proven high competence and capacity in the field of remote sensing of optically complex waters as well as three successful and quickly developing enterprises with unique complementary expertise and tools.

Background

There is a need to build up user oriented interactive business lines to exploit research achievements in the field of Earth Observations for a better and more cost-effective way to monitor processes in inland and coastal waters and estimate their ecological status, as they suffer from strong anthropogenic impact. The main sources of remote sensing data consist of optical signature obtained from satellites, or airborne and even close-range spectroradiometers. The information contained in these data that can be related to water quality parameters is, however, heavily influenced by the atmosphere, lake or sea bottom, and land-water interfaces. This can lead to problems in data interpretation, specifically in optically complex waters such as coastal seas, lakes, and shallow areas.