case studies

Objective:

Gain insight in spatial and temporal variation in food availability for mussels monitor turbidity as a result of dredging fisheries and sand nourishment monitor environmental status of the coastal waters, including eutrophication, PP, indicator species phaeocystis, and to provide data for reporting requirements.

Waddenzee and Eems estuary is a highly dynamic and productive estuarine area, characterised by extensive tidal mud flats, saltmarshes, and deeper tidal creeks. It‘s also one of the largest coastal wetlands in the world and a biodiversity hotspot. Pressures such as eutrophication, increased sedimentation due to dredging, sea level rise, invasive species are causing ecosystem changes.

CoastObs will help users interested in ecological status and trends in water quality, historic analysis service to monitor the sources, magnitude and consequences of eutrophication.

Objective:

• Gain insight in spatial and temporal variation of intertidal macrophytes (seagrass beds and macro-algae) and submerged seagrass beds;
• To retrieve European Directives variables (eg. biomass and areal extent)
• To develop an optical non-destructive method to estimate intertidal seagrass leaf biomass and epiphytes with a field spectroradiometer

Bourgneuf Bay with a total surface of 340 km² is a macrotidal bay (tidal range 6m) located in the coast of France. The intertidal zone (~ 100 km2) is mostly constituted of mudflats and rocky areas, widely used for shellfish aquaculture (oyster farms). Large wild oyster reefs are found in the eastern part of the bay. The intertidal zone also presents benthic microalgae (BMA), macroalgae, and seagrass (mostly Zostera noltei).

CoastObs will use Sentinel2 time-series to update decadal trend analysis and retrieve WFD variables (total extent, biomass)and to help aquaculture management of wild oyster reefs.

Objective:

• To gain insight in spatial and temporal variation of submerged macrophytes (seagrass beds and macro-algae) and their correlation to eutrophication and anoxic crises in the Lagoon of Venice;
• To investigate the morphodynamics, coastal erosion and accretion patterns in dynamic key areas, based on suspended sediment transport-dispersion pathways.

The Venice lagoon with a total surface of ca. 550 km² is a very shallow coastal environment with a mean depth of 1 m, connected with the sea through three inlets (Lido, Malamocco, Chioggia). It is influenced by freshwater from the land and tides of the NAS, so a succession of different environments from the mainland to the sea characterizes the complex morphology of the lagoon. For example: shallows, mudflats, wetlands, sandbars, islands and a dense network of channels. Like all lagoons, it is a constanly evolving environment, which tends to be swallowed up by the sea, if erosive forces of tides and waves are allowed to prevail, or to turn into a strip of land, if the sediments from rivers and sea are allowed to build up.

Today, the problems that undermine the balance of the lagoon's ecosystem are quite different. Changes brought about by man and Nature have triggered a process that is quite the opposite to silting-up: the relative land level is now about 24 cm lower than the sea and so settlements are now exposed to high tides (the phenomenon known as “acqua alta”) with increasing frequency and intensity; at the same time other problems also compromise the ecosystem, such as erosion of the morphological structures of the lagoon and pollution, once an unknown enemy.

CoastObs will gain insight in spatial and temporal variation of submerged macrophytes (seagrass beds and macro-algae) and their correlation to eutrophication and anoxic crises in the Lagoon of Venice; and will further investigate the morphodynamics, coastal erosion and accretion patterns in dynamic key areas, based on suspended sediment transport-dispersion pathways.

Objective:

Delivery of operational services to the users based on specifications set up in SLAs. Particular focus will be on incorporating chlorophyll-a concentration from satellite ocean colour data into the prediction of bloom occurrence of Pseudo-nitzschia spp. abundance and dynamics in Galicia Area using the SVM models for early detection, neural networks and GAMs CoastObs services will be set up for the EO-based detection and progression of HABs which will provide them with useful advanced information of importance to the local mussel industry and guide the regional monitoring programme.