IOnian Sea water quality MOnitoring by Satellite data

Component 1

Identification, acquisition and analysis of multi-temporal data/satellite products

The activity will consist of a preliminary identification of products/satellite data useful for the project purposes. At the end of this first phase the historical archive will be populated. Subsequently these data will be analyzed in a multi-temporal approach.



Responsible partner:

CNR - IMAA

Identification of the best satellite products useful for the project purposes
There are many satellite products concerning sea water properties, generated from SeaWiFS and MODIS data. Among these, there are someone more specific for the water quality:

  • Chlorophyll-a
  • CDOM (Colored Dissolved Organic Matter)
  • SST (Sea Surface Temperature)
  • TSM (Total Suspended Material)
  • RSR (Remote Sensing Reflectance).

In order to characterize the investigated areas identifying the most useful parameters for the project purposes, in this first activity the parameters mentioned above will be derived for the study area and over a period not less than 10 years. At the same time the satellite original products (generated from satellite data acquired and archived at the IMAA and the SI-UNIBAS) capabilities in describing water properties will be assessed.

Historical dataset creation also through the implementation of automatic procedures
Once useful satellite products/data have been identified, the historical archives will be populated. To make these operations faster an appropriate automatic chains will be designed and implemented.

Multi-temporal analysis of datasets including the development of tools and software
Multi-temporal analysis will allow both the assessment of the investigated products/data trends and their characterization in the space-time domain. The analysis of trends will allow to assess any significant changes occurred in the last decade, while the measure of deviations from expected values will allow to identify anomalies eventually related to the pollution/degradation occurrence.

The output produced from the first component can be summarized as:

  1. 3 Ocean Color products: SeaWiFS, MODIS e VIIRS.

  2. 3 Interest parameters: i) chlorophyll concentration; ii) sea surface temperature; iii) variation of suspended solids content.

  3. 240 Monthly average maps and relative variability of chlorophyll-a concentration in the Ionian coast of Basilicata region for each year between 2003-2012 (1 map of the monthly average + 1 map of the relative variability for 12 months and 10 years); Project Output O1.

  4. 240 Monthly average maps and relative variability of sea surface temperature in the Ionian coast of Basilicata region for each year between 2003-2012 (1 map of the monthly average + 1 map of the relative variability for 12 months and 10 years) ; Project Output O1.

  5. 480 Monthly average maps as c) e d) for the Aegean Sea waters around the island of Crete.

  6. 20 Annual average maps and relative variability of chlorophyll-a concentration in the Ionian coast of Basilicata region obtained through an annual analysis for each of the 10 years (2003-2012) available (1 map of the annual average + 1 map of the relative variability on 10 years) Project Output O1.

  7. 20 Annual average maps and relative variability of sea surface temperature in the Ionian coast of Basilicata region obtained through an annual analysis for each of the 10 years (2003-2012) available (1 map of the annual average + 1 map of the relative variability on 10 years), Project Output O1.

  8. 40 Annual average maps as f) e g) for the Aegean Sea waters around the island of Crete.

  9. 24 Monthly average maps and relative variability obtained of chlorophyll-a concentration in the Ionian coast of Basilicata region through a multi-temporal analysis of 10 years of available data (1 map of multi-year monthly average + 1 map of the relative variability for 12 months); Project Output O1.

  10. 24 Monthly average maps and relative variability obtained of sea surface temperature in the Ionian coast of Basilicata region through a multi-temporal analysis of 10 years of available data (1 map of multi-year monthly average + 1 map of the relative variability for 12 months); Project Output O1.

  11. 48 Monthly average maps as i) and l) for the Aegean Sea waters around the island of Crete.

  12. Maps of space/time anomalies in the historical series relative to points i), l), m). The maps were generated on a monthly time scale (12 maps for each study area) and, if necessary, even at daily scale; Project Output O2.

  13. 1 Automatic downloading and processing chain (spectral and spatial subset) for OC MODIS satellite products.

  14. 1 Tool for automatic generation of mean values and standard deviation at different time scales (monthly, annual, multi-year).

  15. 1 Tool for automatic generation of space/time anomalies starting from the time series.

Results obtained at the end of the first component were presented in two documents:

  1. Report about the identification of satellite data/products useful for the characterization and monitoring of water quality for the Ionian coast of Basilicata region(IOSMOS-Report-C1-R1).

  2. Report about changes in bio-optical parameters relevant for the coastal waters quality along the Ionian coast using satellite observations over the last 10-15 years (IOSMOS-Report-C1-R2).